ACT 27: Roger the Vigilante
by Galaxy1001D
Summary: After the battle with Big Fau, Roger Smith must put his life, and R. Dorothy Waynewright, back together. With Dorothy's creator dead, the only one who can restore her is Jason Beck! Can Dorothy be saved or will she be lost forever? THE BIG O: SEASON THREE
1. A Word From Norman Burg

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter One: A Word From Norman Burg_

The old style elevator opens, and out steps a tall elderly man who's thin white hair contrasts with his bushy eyebrows and full mustache. Despite the genial expression on his face the black eyepatch concealing his left eyesocket makes him appear intimidating at first glance. He is clad in coveralls, a flannel shirt, heavy boots and gloves and is sporting a work helmet on his dome. He seems surprised to see you, and starts at your approach.

"Oh my," he says with a distinguished British accent that is out of character for his workingman's clothes. "You're early. I'm afraid that I had to repair the damage that I did with Big O and lost track of the time…" He removes his helmet to reveal the balding pate that his sparse white hair fails to cover. "As those who are familiar with the progamme, _The Big O_, my name is Norman Burg, and Master Roger keeps his megadeus, (that's what the highest order of giant robots are called) in a bunker under the former bank that he has turned into his personal residence. Inside the underground bunker, Big O is protected by four sturdy, reinforced walls. While I was running diagnositics on the weapons systems, I'm afraid that I accentdentally fired some of them off…" While he speaks, Norman walks behind a changing screen and emerges from the other side clad an elegant tuxedo associated with English butlers.

"The first wall was not damaged at all, and the second wall deflected the lasers and only sustained damage to the paint. The third wall absorbed the impact of the cluster bomb splendidly…but I'm afraid the fourth wall…" he trails off. He straightens his tie and clears his throat. "I'm afraid that I've broken the fourth wall entirely and have spent the entire day repairing it. Still no need to burden you with my problems, let's introduce the narrative shall we?

"The author assumes that anyone reading this has watched all twentysix epsides of _The Big O_, and enjoyed the series so much that twentysix episodes just isn't enough. Although turning to fanfiction is a logical way to fill the gap, the allegorical ending of the _The Big O_ series makes it rather difficult to pick up where the series left off and forces many splendid stories on this site and others to be considered alternate universes, or AU's for short."

Norman clears his throat and straightens his jacket. "The author of this particular tale will attempt to write a third season in story form, starting with the tale you are about to read now. Should he be unable to reach this lofty goal, he at least hopes that this particular story will restore the world of Paradigm City back to normal and allow any narratives posted on this site or any others to be considered 'canon', at least by their perspective authors if no one else. It's quite a challenge, especially when one considers how long it has been since _The Big O_ was on the air. Still let us give him our encouragement, shall we? I know that I am biased in my opinions, but there simply haven't been enough _Big O_ stories posted lately."

Norman coughs somewhat selfconciously. "Well, I know that you have better things to do than listen to some silly old duffer dithering on about the author's notes, but I still think that it is fair to warn you that this story and its sequels are simply chock full of spoilers of everykind. The author is arrogant enough…er ambitious enough to attempt to address some of the mysteries that cropped up in the series and this may spoil the surprise to those of you who have not familiarized yourself with the programme.

"Should you want to watch episodes of _The Big O, _Cartoon Network is good place to start if you are in the states. I recommend purchasing them over the internet using the ebay and amazon sites. Still, for those of you who have…limited means, you can watch all of the episodes for free at Youtube if you don't mind watching them in segments and putting up with rather questionable resolution. Still, it is a good place to start.

"If you don't remember what happened on _The Big O_, or are unfamiliar with the programme don't worry. Nearly everybody in Paradigm City has problems with memory," Here the elderly butler grins rather cheekily. "The author has assured me that every attempt has been made to introduce _The Big O _to first time viewers, although that will probably result in exposition that longtime fans of the show will not need. Still it is the best compromise we can come up with and every good negotiator understands the importance of compromise."

Norman crosses to a rather archaic machine with tiny circular screen. It bears a slight resemblance to the first working electronic television invented by Philo T. Farnsworth in 1928. The butler flicks a switch and turns some knobs as static appears on the screen. "Well, let's begin Act 27 by picking up right where we left things, shall we? At the end of Act 26, Roger Smith had mysteriously been transported out of Big O and found himself replaying the footage that introduced him at the beginninng of Act 1. We will pick up there and continue just as if the show had a season three. I hope you enjoy the show."

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Roger the Dreamer_


	2. Roger the Deamer

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Two: Roger the Dreamer _

The ruined city was disappearing, block-by-block. Already the land was an unnatural flat plane. A glowing grid of lines was visible on both the ground and the sky. Standing in the ruined city was the megadeus, Paradigm City's last hope of survival.

The megadeus was an ungainly metal giant towering as high as the ruined buildings around it. Two vaguely humanoid legs supported its barrel shaped body. The enormous arms of the megadeus known as 'Big O' were in reality massive piledrivers with huge mechanical hands instead of chisels. The head of Big O was an impassive face that was dwarfed by the megadeus' humungous body. The head seemed even smaller, for it had lost the crimson armor that crowned its head like a hat in an earlier battle. The red collar of Big O was open to reveal a cockpit and a man standing in front of a control chair walking out onto the balcony that had been created by the space in the robot's chest.

The man was young, apparently in his midtwenties. Clad in a white shirt and black dress slacks with suspenders, his matching shoes and tie gave the impression of a dapper dresser who was been disheveled by a recent struggle. The wind blew a black tie bisected by a gray stripe that was knotted around his throat. His broad shoulders and trim waist indicated both strength and agility. His jet-black hair, strong jaw and high cheekbones on his boyish face made him the definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome. His intelligent eyes narrowed at the spectacle approaching the megadeus and his angular eyebrows dipped as he met this one last challenge.

Behind the chair was a slender teenage girl wearing a skintight wetsuit. Her skin was deathly white and her dark violet eyes appeared black in the dim light. Her short red hair did not hide the rectangular cavity above her forehead. It was as if a section of her forehead the size of a book had been removed and electrical cables were extending from the opening. She stared straight ahead, her eyes unseeing, her expression, emotionless. The impossible vision before them made no impact on the girl who was as still as a mannequin.

It was unbelievable. Coming towards them was a ghostly mirror to the Big O. They had lost the crystalline red crown that topped its head, and the ghostly megadeus that was approaching did not have a crown either. As it approached the crumbling city glowed and vanished, block-by-block, building-by-building, until only a glowing grid covering the perfectly flat ground was left. Even the sky seemed to disappear to be replaced by a ghostly grid of lines as if miles above was an impossibly high roof.

"Angel!" The man shouted at the ghostly robot heading for them. "Memories are very precious to people's lives! They give us the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we exist! And if we lose them, we have an unrelenting feeling of uncertainty!" Big O's spectral twin continued to plod forward, as buildings and landmarks vanished in its wake. "You must listen to me!" he insisted. "The humans that are living now in the present are made up of more than their memories of the past!" The negotiator walked out of Big O's cockpit to address the phantasmal megadeus that plodded towards them.

"I myself don't even know who I am!" he declared from his perch on Big O's collar, his arms gesturing to emphasize the sincerity of his confession. "I don't have a single solitary memory about myself, but I don't believe that anyone took them from me. I most likely erased them of my own free will. I was the one who made that choice. I made it for myself, so I could live in the present and in the future! Because I must go on believing there is a _me_!"

It wasn't working. The colossal phantasm continued to thunder towards them. There wasn't very much of the city left. Soon there would be nothing at all. Talking about himself didn't work. She's a woman, he thought. Talk about _her_, you idiot!

"Angel!" he called in the most apologetic voice that he could muster. "I know that I will never lose the you that is now a part of my memories! The you that met me, and the conviction you had for what you felt you needed to do! The you that loved yourself more than anyone else ever could! I'll never forget this woman named Angel, who once loved herself, but was filled with such doubt." You really should have kissed her when the two of you were by the river, he scolded himself. You've left her with nothing to believe in. He spread his arms wide, ready to sacrifice himself to the nonexistence that Angel's nihilistic despair had condemned all of mankind to. Somehow he knew that when the ghostly megadeus reached them, it wouldn't just pass through their disintegrating bodies like it did to Alex Rosewater and Big Fau. It would cease to exist as well. "You must stop denying your own existence," he implored. "You have to live as a human being." He could only hope that inside the cockpit of that titanic apparition, Angel was listening.

Weeping quietly in a hidden chamber beneath the vanishing city was a blonde woman dressed in a pink jacket and a black miniskirted dress. The woman was an angelic image of beauty. Her comely features expressed a tenderness that could only be found in heaven, and the curves of her body and her long shapely legs promised carnal pleasures that would be sinful enough to ensure that one would never enter that celestial realm. She was in a control room watching his plea on a screen in front of a huge panel of controls. On the control panel was a red book titled '_Metropolis, by Angel Rosewater'_. Tears trickled down her lovely cheeks as she choked back a sob. From behind her a hand gently clasped her shoulder. She turned in surprise to see the redheaded girl and the broadshouldered man standing behind her.

The redheaded girl was the one from the cockpit of the humongous robot known as Big O. Instead of a skintight wetsuit she was wearing a gothic yet dowdy reddish black dress. A black hair band covered the cavity in her head, making her appear whole. "Roger," she uttered lifelessly, "the negotiator."

Incredibly, the man standing behind the weeping blonde was the same man that was making a desperate plea from the cockpit of the megadeus. Even his clothing was the same, except that the young man placing his hand gently on the woman's shoulder was also wearing a double-breasted black blazer. How could this be?

Unbelieving, the teary-eyed young woman turned back to gaze at the screen that showed Big O and its ghostly twin meet and vanish.

_My name is Roger Smith. I perform a much-needed job here in this city of amnesia._

Roger Smith was driving the long black sedan he called 'the griffin' down the streets of Paradigm City, past the stares of onlookers who no doubt mistook him for a wealthy dome-dweller. He was clad in his black suit consisting of black double-breasted jacket, matching trousers, shoes and gloves. His shirt was crisp and white and his black tie was bisected by a gray stripe. Opaque black sunglasses hid his eyes from few.

He drove through the dingy streets, ignoring a blonde woman in a short pink skirt and a black jacket standing next to a redheaded teenage girl in a gothic black dress. The two women gazed wistfully from the sidewalk as his black sedan passed them by.

He drove on, ignoring the fact that Major Dan Dastun of the military police was standing next to Roger's butler, Norman Burg, and both of them were standing on a street corner watching Roger drive past.

He drove past others that he knew, the mysterious informant that he nicknamed 'Big Ear', the street musician Olivier and his blind girlfriend, members of his squad when Roger Smith had been a member of the military police.

He drove on, ignoring them all, and didn't stop until he had nearly left Paradigm City altogether.

On the outskirts of the city was an abandoned airport. Roger Smith drove his long black sedan into a hanger where a group of men had parked their car near the opposite wall. Roger parked the griffin near the entrance to the hanger, leaving a great deal of distance between the two vehicles.

Roger stepped out of his car and carried a black briefcase with him. He started walking forward until the vehicle ahead of him activated its headlights, blinding him momentarily.

"Leave it right there!" a voice called out.

Roger was not impressed with the posturing. In a voice as calm and clear as he could muster he called out: "I thought the arrangement we made was clear. In a fair deal, all parties lay their cards on the table... Mr. Beck."

The tall man with the blonde pompadour wore a yellow suit and smirked back him. He chuckled, imitating Roger's voice in order to mock him. "Okay...Mr. Paradigm City Negotiator." Beck nodded to a goon sitting in the yellow car's back seat.

All of Beck's men were dressed identically. Black pants, black shoes, tan raincoat, grayish black fedoras with beige hatbands, grayish black ties, starched white shirts. Even their hair was styled similarly. Pretty clever setup, Roger had to admit. It made them almost impossible to identify. One could only tell the police what they were wearing, rather than a description of the men themselves.

The third goon pulled a passenger out of the car with him. She was a slender teenage girl whose red hair was styled short in a pageboy haircut. She wore a light green dress with a white collar and white leggings. Her skin appeared deathly white in the shadowy hangar.

Roger laid the briefcase on the floor and opened it to reveal that it was full of stacks of hundred dollar bills.

The gold suited man examined the case through a set of binoculars. "Soldano haggled over the money for his own daughter," Beck snorted. "That's some father."

The case snapped shut. "It's the amount both of you agreed on," Roger chastised as he closed the case and set the latches. He stood up and used his foot to push the briefcase forward. Somehow, the force of his kick pushed the case halfway across the dusty hangar. "All right. Now send the girl this way!" the negotiator ordered.

The girl's hands were freed, and she brought her arms forward with relief, taking a few awkward steps. "Take your time, miss," Roger gently commanded. Just walk slowly towards my voice." To the girl's credit, she walked forward at a steady pace, with no hesitation, even though she was blindfolded. "That's it. Keep coming."

She continued forward, ignoring the goon that was following her, but walked straight towards Roger, her arms outstretched to detect obstacles and maintaining a dainty and feminine gait. She halted only when her hands reached the jacket of an expensive suit, and the waist of the man who wore it.

Roger had to suppress a smile. He had rescued the maiden in distress. "You can remove the blindfold now... Miss Soldano." His tone was gentle.

She tugged at the knot and pulled the cloth away. Roger made a soft sound of surprise. The winsome girl was attractive in a delicate, fragile way. Her large dark eyes were intelligent, more intelligent than one would expect from a child her age. A pale headband separated her reddish-brown bangs from the rest of her hair. Her nose was small and petite, just like the rest of her. Even up close her skin was as white as marble, the poor girl must have been cooped up inside for weeks before Soldano contacted Roger. She was incredibly calm for a teenager that had undergone the ordeal that she had, yet a ghost of a smile could be seen at her lips. She was strong. He admired that. For a moment, he wished that he were back in high school so he could get to know this incredible young girl that had persevered through a nightmare that most people couldn't imagine…

Suddenly a brawny arm went around Roger's neck, dragging him to the ground.

"I got him, Boss!" a vulgar voice announced as Beck and the rest of his goons raced forward, passing the briefcase full of money in their haste to close the distance between them and the negotiator. As an afterthought, Beck took a step back and retrieved the case full of money, and then strolled leisurely forward in order to join his men.

Idiot. Roger hadn't paid attention to the thug that was following Dorothy Soldano, and now he was paying for it. How could he have let that girl mesmerize him like that? It wasn't his style to make such a stupid mistake and now he was going to pay for it if he couldn't get free. Was the girl in on it? It wouldn't be the first time that a hostage completely identified with her captors.

"Roger!" The girl cried. "Let him go!" She jumped on to the back of the shortest thug, using her legs to hang onto him while her arms flailed at his head.

"Get off me!" the crook snarled as he flung her to the ground.

"Oh…" she sighed as she held onto her scrape on her elbow. Her dress had short sleeves and one of her unprotected arms was bleeding.

Nope. The girl wasn't in on it. How did she know his name? Who knew? And with three thugs grappling him, who cared? One had his legs, and the other two had his arms. He kicked one bruiser off him, but the other two had him.

"Be careful," Beck smiled as he pulled a pair of pliers out of his jacket pocket. "Don't damage him. We're going to need him if we want to get Roger One operational."

"I can't find his drive, boss!" One thug complained.

"Oh well," Beck shrugged. "We'll just have to take the whole thing. Take him apart and put him into the trunk okay?"

"Gotcha, boss," a thug nodded as he pulled one of Roger's arms out of his sleeve. Before Roger's unbelieving gaze, the henchman handed his arm to the lackey that he had kicked off earlier. At the socket of his disembodied limb was metal and electrodes! This was impossible!

"R-roger…" Dorothy Soldano stumbled to her feet and brushed the tears out of her eyes. "Please don't hurt him!" She begged as she seized Beck's jacket. "Take me instead!"

"Miss Soldano, please," Beck shrugged her off with exaggerated calm. "With respect, we don't want you. You're just a human being, but the circuitry and the central processing unit of that android are priceless!"

"N-no…!" she moaned as first an arm and then a leg was removed from a futilely struggling Roger. Before her horrified eyes, the tallest thug stood up holding Roger's head!

"Raw…jur…" she called mournfully. "Raw…jur…Smith…"

Roger's vision became useless when the pieces of his dismembered body was thrown in the trunk. His head bounced off of his knee as the lid closed and he was engulfed in darkness.

Raw…jur…Smith…" Dorothy's voice called to him resolutely. Light flickered back into existence as he stared at a round cathode screen at his feet.

"Raw…jur…Smith…" It sound as if Dorothy's disembodied voice was right behind him, shouting in his ears.

"Wake…up…Raw…jur…Smith…" came her stilted voice as Roger found himself sitting down in a control room of some kind, perhaps a cockpit for some vehicle.

On the round screen came the scrolling words: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Big Fau_


	3. Big Fau

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Three: Big Fau_

Everything was scarlet, like he was looking at the world through a crimson lens. He was in a control room of some kind. Sitting in a chair. His feet were in pedals, but he wasn't on a bicycle. Between his feet were three circular cathode screens. The center one displayed scrolling words: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY".

'Not guilty'? Not guilty of what? Considering that his last memory was being dismembered and thrown in a car trunk he felt pretty grateful that he wasn't considered 'guilty'. Perhaps he would have woken up somewhere worse than this strange semicircular room. He sat up and looked around. Various knobs and switches were arrayed around him. In addition two arms curved around his chair to end with a joystick within reach of each of his hands. The curved wall directly ahead of him seemed to be made of a partially translucent red material, but his vision was momentarily too blurry to show him the outside world.

Instinctively, he checked his limbs to make sure they were still connected. Okay, so he wasn't taken apart and thrown in a car trunk. So far, so good. But who was he? And what was he doing in this room? It was a control center, but a control center to what?

In the left screen was a readout displaying a vaguely humanoid form. From the shape, it appeared to be constructed of cinderblocks. Two massive legs supported a barrel shaped torso. Two massive arms hung to the sides by rather slender, fragile looking joints that served as shoulders. Above the 'shoulders' the torso continued up in a huge collar to end in a rather tiny head. Various sections of the diagram were colored red, perhaps to indicate damage or other trouble. The right screen displayed a listing of various weapons systems as well as ammunition supplies and what might be a power reading or two, but it was all gibberish in his confused and muddled mind. He didn't know who he was and what he was doing here. He didn't even know his own name.

"Roger Smith," said a soft feminine voice behind him. From the tone of her lifeless voice she couldn't have been in any better shape than he was. It sounded as if her brain wasn't working properly either. Apparently he wasn't alone, and whatever happened to him had happened to her as well.

He turned to look behind him only to gasp at the sight. Standing directly behind his chair on a small cramped platform against the rear wall was a teenage girl wearing a gray, skintight wetsuit. Her slender form was beautiful in a fragile, delicate way, and the colorless skin of her innocent face appeared whiter than paper. That wasn't what caused his sharp intake of breath, however. Just above the bangs of her short red hair was a rectangular gap, as if someone had cut out a cross section of her head. Slender electronic cables insulated by grayish black rubber snaked out of her head to connect just behind the base of his chair.

"Dorothy!" he shuddered. He knew this girl. This innocent child who had just crossed the cusp to adulthood, whose body had just bloomed only to have her life ended and turned into a grotesque parody of life. He tried to speak, but the words he stammered didn't make any sense. What had happened to her? How did he know her, and who was he?

"Roger Smith," her jaw moved while the rest of the girl remained as still as a statue, "the negotiator."

That was it! He was Roger Smith, the negotiator! The pilot of Big O, the black megadeus that he and his butler Norman Burg had discovered under Paradigm City and used to defend the city of amnesia from giant monsters, robots, natural disasters and other ghosts from the past that threatened to destroy the last known stronghold of humanity!

The girl was R. Dorothy Wayneright, the 'R' stood for 'robot'. She was the creation of Doctor Timothy Wayneright, an elderly scientist who had apparently been the leading authority of robotics before the mysterious calamity that wiped out the Earth and left the survivors in Paradigm City with no memories of what happened or even who they were.

Dorothy had been kidnapped. This time by scorpion-like robots controlled by Jason Beck, a small time crook that turned to kidnapping and other major felonies after somehow gaining knowledge of mechanical design to rival that of the late Doctor Wayneright. This time, Beck was working for Alex Rosewater and the homicidal cyborg Alan Gabriel. It wasn't like Beck to work for The Man, he prided himself as a criminal mastermind in his own right, but Roger couldn't care less what kind of hold the chairman of the Paradigm Corporation had on him, or why the bionic agent of Paradigm's feared enemies in the Union had become Rosewater's right hand man.

When Roger had found Dorothy, she had been abandoned at the top of a building with the disk drive and her main memory removed from her head. Norman, who had retained the knowledge to repair and maintenance the Big O, had gloomily lamented that even if Dorothy's missing drive could be found that he doubted that anyone alive had the skill necessary to restore her. Even so, Roger had set out in Big O to reclaim Dorothy's lost hard drive, or die trying.

It wasn't long before he found out what they were using Dorothy's components for. Alan Gabriel had hooked himself up to the aerial megadeus known as Big Duo, only to lose control of the massive robot when confronted with the mocking ghost of Schwarzwald, a former reporter who went insane searching for the truth of Paradigm City's history.

Alex Rosewater was apparently no stranger to madness either. He had restored Big Fau, a hulking white megadeus to his control and started destroying sections of Paradigm City. It made no sense. The Paradigm Corporation owned or ruled by economic coercion every aspect of Paradigm City. Even the military police were in reality corporate muscle, for it was Paradigm who signed their paychecks. The rich lived in sections of the city protected by huge geodesic domes, while the rest of the city was allowed to crumble under the weight of time, neglect, and poverty.

Alex Rosewater was the king of the last known bastion of humanity, for all intents and purposes, the ruler of all mankind. Yet it still was not enough and he was driven to eradicate the civilization that his father Gordon had built forty years ago and replace it with a world of his own creation. Madness, self-destructive stupidity and unlimited power were a lethal mix. Alex Rosewater had to be on top, had to be the best, had to be the first, or it all had to go. The great Gordon Rosewater, the founder of the dystopia called Paradigm City had apparently gone senile and had turned over control to Alex years ago.

Something had gone wrong in the fight against Big Fau and Big Duo. Apparently a true megadeus is a lot stronger than most robots of similar size, and Roger couldn't expect battling one let alone two, to be easy. Perhaps Roger was simply off his game. Thankfully, Big O could take an amount punishment bordering on the unbelievable. He had been knocked into the sea and Roger had nearly drowned when the compartment flooded with seawater.

Then the impossible had happened, and kept on happening. Dorothy, clad in a wetsuit had come to rescue him and provided the negotiator with a tank of oxygen. It was impossible. Dorothy couldn't function without her core memory and yet there she was, rescuing him from certain death. Perhaps it wasn't her core memory that was removed from her metal and ceramic skull. Maybe it was a power regulator, or an auxiliary input drive. Or maybe none of this was really happening, and Roger had succumbed to the insanity that plagued nearly every citizen of Paradigm City who had gotten near a megadeus.

The entire city didn't seem real anymore. Up above a giant roof seemed to eclipse the sky when the clouds parted. Soon bits and pieces of the city kept disappearing until finally it was all gone.

In the meantime Roger had defeated Rosewater and Big Fau when Dorothy augmented Big O by plugging herself into the megadeus' main computer. The arms with the joysticks retracted to be replaced with an ultramodern panel that controlled a massive energy cannon that extended from Big O's chest and blown a hole in Big Fau that nearly cut it in half. Then the ghostly mirror image of Big O had appeared and erased the city of Paradigm and itself in the process.

Had any of that really happened? If so, how much? Was this like the time he dreamed that he was a homeless drifter in Paradigm's glorious past? Was he still dreaming? What was real? And how did he have memories of events that took place when he wasn't present?

"Help…me," Dorothy said mechanically while maintaining her perfect posture. "Roger. Help me."

That brought him back to reality. Dorothy was still suffering. Of course she was. A piece of her head was missing. Roger doubted that if a piece of _his_ head that size was missing that he could do any better.

"Dorothy?" His voice sounded strange. "How do I help? What can I do?"

Suddenly he understood. It was like the time that Big O had let him know without speaking that Dorothy was in danger and revealed her location, all without words, without any readout from his panels. Was Big O telepathic? How could a machine communicate with him that way? Dorothy obviously had no trouble communicating with Big O since the cables in her head were plugged into the megadeus. Dorothy's central processing unit was missing. Her brain had been removed from her head. She was controlling her body by remote control, but now Big O could assist her by taking up the slack of her cerebral functions.

"Dorothy, where are you?" he asked. "Where are the missing pieces? Where did they take your drive?"

In answer, Dorothy pointed over Roger's shoulder. The red semitransparent wall in the front of the cockpit slid up to reveal the outside world. There was Big Fau, a huge circular chunk blown off of its body. A big round gap where half of its chest and its left arm should have been.

"I should have realized," Roger growled. Dorothy's wayward hard drive had to be in either Big Fau or Big Duo. Somehow he expected it to be in Big Duo since Big Fau had no trouble defeating the monster that the Union had sicced upon the city a few weeks back.

Roger's feet moved in the pedals and Big O lumbered forward on the uneven terrain of the damaged streets of Paradigm. After the uncannily smooth terrain of the vanishing city of his vision, the rubble-strewn street was comforting.

Soon the two megadeuses were so close that they could embrace. Roger peered across the distance see the cockpit of the crippled white behemoth before him. He could see what had to be Alex Rosewater inside, sitting in a command chair. The cannon from his vision had apparently blown the left wall neatly off, exposing the insane head honcho of humanity to view.

He may own everything, Roger thought to himself, but he's still a thief. Time to take back what belongs to Dorothy.

Roger may have lost his double-breasted jacket, but he still had his wristwatch. Capable of summoning Big O and the black Cadillac known as the Griffon, the incredible device also hosted a number of other gadgets, including a miniature grappling hook and cable.

The pneumonic hiss was a satisfying sound as the grappling hook shot out of his wristwatch, carrying the cable with it. Thanks to the damage that Big Fau had suffered, there were lots of places for the grappler to attach itself to. A rushing wind unhindered by buildings hit Roger in the face was he jumped out of Big O and swung to the cockpit in the enemy megadeus. Even the sting of the wind was a welcome respite from the smell of seawater that permeated Big O's cockpit right now.

Amazingly, the acrobatic negotiator made it Big Fau's cockpit alive and in one piece. After the ordeal that he had been through he hadn't expected to be in the physical condition necessary to jump from one megadeus to another. Heck, at the rate he had been hallucinating he was lucky that he hadn't jumped out of Big O into empty air.

"All right, Rosewater!" Roger snapped. "Where's Dorothy's hard drive? Where did you install it?" He stopped, dumbfounded by the vision in front of him.

Alex Rosewater had a number of cables sticking out his back. They had pierced his white jacket and shirt to attach to the chairman's central nervous system, in effect turning him into a cyborg. That part of his vision was true.

How did he know that? Was Big Fau communicating with Big O in a way he couldn't fathom? Was the part of Dorothy that was trapped in this metal monstrosity using a telepathic ability that true megadeuses possess in order to feed him information? That would explain why he knew what happened in the cockpits of Big O and Big Fau, but wouldn't explain his visions of Angel descending over six hundred floors beneath Paradigm City and being given total power by Gordon Rosewater.

"My…city," Alex chanted, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was watching something that only he could see. "This is my city, not yours Dad! I'm not one of your tomatoes!"

Roger drew a sharp intake of breath and almost tumbled out of the cockpit. His knees seemed to turn to jelly beneath him. Gordon Rosewater had used tomatoes as an allegory, and hinted that just as one could copy tomatoes one could clone people as well. The elder Rosewater seemed to imply that if one created a copy of a person they could access the memories of the original, even if that person was long dead.

Was Alex his son, or his clone? That would explain why Alex Rosewater had eventually succumbed to insanity. Congenital defects could include mental instability when one messed with genetics the way Gordon apparently had. If Alex discovered that he was an augmented copy that could have been the last nudge he needed to slip into total madness.

Sweat dripped down the chairman's forehead. "I am Alex Rosewater," he hissed. "I am a new god! I shall create a new world and destroy all of those who don't deserve to live in it! Not even the domineus of the black megadeus can stop me! I shall bring salvation to the world and rid the masses of the burden of their memories! I…am…all…powerful!"

My god, thought the horrified negotiator. Was that what Dorothy had to watch when the city was attacked by three foreign megadeuses? Rosewater refused to admit defeat and had retreated into his own little world. Roger fought the temptation to seize Alex Rosewater by the lapels of his white double-breasted jacket and shake some sense into the megalomaniac. It was unlikely that the delirious chairman would have any idea what he was talking about, even if the negotiator could get through to him.

But where could Dorothy's drive be? He couldn't very well search the entire megadeus could he? He didn't even know if any of this was real. Oh well, he thought, when reason fails it's time to turn to faith.

"Dorothy!" he shouted out the hole in Big Fau's cockpit. Then he remembered that Dorothy was connected to Big O's central processing unit. "Dorothy," he spoke into his watch, "I need help. Tell me where they installed your CPU. Where are you? Help me."

Back in the cockpit of Big O Dorothy Wayneright continued to stand her vigil behind Roger's empty chair. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and a strange electronic noise could be heard over the shrieking of the wind.

In Big Fau, Roger covered his ears to escape the digital din that was issuing from his wristwatch. It was like the sound of a fax machine attempting to transfer an entire dictionary in less than a minute. Suddenly, the awful noise ceased and Roger's attention was captured by a green electronic component the size of a paperback book sliding out of the wall behind Alex Rosewater's command chair. Dorothy's hard drive! There it is! Smiling, the weary negotiator removed a tiny screwdriver from his trouser pocket and started to remove it.

"No!" Alex Rosewater shouted into the air. "No! You can't stop me! No one can stop me!"

"Could you keep it down?" Roger muttered over his shoulder. "I'm working here."

"You can't stop Big Fau!" Alex insisted. "I won't let you!"

"Consider him stopped," Roger smirked as one by one the screws holding the errant drive were removed.

"I…am…Alex Rosewater," the raving chairman said in a hoarse voice. "The one! The only! I am the original!"

"You're an original, all right," Roger agreed sarcastically. "I can only hope that when Gordon made you, he broke the mold."

"I control Big Fau!" Rosewater was yelling so loud it was like he was shouting in Roger's ear. "I control him! You cannot take him away from me!"

"You can keep him," Roger growled. "Now just shut up, will ya? This is the last screw you crazy…"

Pain lanced through Roger's skull as he fell forward and tumbled to the floor. He rolled onto his back in time to witness an insane Alex Rosewater tackle him.

"Big Fau is mine, Roger Smith the negotiator," Alex grinned as his hands clamped around Smith's throat. "Big Fau will always be mine and you cannot take him away!"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Home is Where the Hard Drive Is_


	4. Home is Where the Hard Drive is

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Four: Home Is Where The Hard Drive is._

"Big Fau is mine, Roger Smith the negotiator," Alex grinned as his hands clamped around Roger's throat. "Big Fau will always be mine and you cannot take him away!"

Spots obscured Roger's vision, but he could still see the skull like face of Alex Rosewater. The older man picked up Roger by the neck and dragged his back up the wall of Big Fau's cockpit where Dorothy's memory drive dangled by wires from an opening.

Alex Rosewater was a tall broad shouldered man in his early forties. His black hair was combed back in a widow's peak, exposing his receding hairline. Despite decades of good living as the only son of Paradigm's founder, Gordon Rosewater, the flesh on his face was thin over his skull, highlighting his cheekbones and making him resemble the grim reaper himself. Even his white, double-breasted suit seemed to be the shroud of a ghost instead of the raiment of a white knight. Of course, the slender, ropelike cables sticking out of his back to disappear into the floor under his chair made him seem like an undead phantom, or an albino spider.

Roger's hands grasped Rosewater's, his arms straining to loosen the unyielding grip that the Paradigm chairman had on his throat. He wished that he had a third hand so he could try something clever, but he needed both hands just to keep his windpipe from being crushed. Spots and flashes appeared before the negotiator's eyes, obscuring Alex's leering and predatory features.

"Roger!" Meanwhile, in the abandoned cockpit of Big O, R. Dorothy Wayneright spoke without changing her mannequin-like posture. Big O's sensors trained on the exposed cockpit of Big Fau, for the huge white megadeus had been nearly blown in half by, if Roger's memory was correct, a cannon produced by the Big O itself.

A number of cables snaked out from the base of Roger's empty chair to connect inside the cavity in Dorothy's head, providing the android with the minimum amount of random access memory that she needed to function. However, if she didn't use the extra RAM that Big O supplied, Big O would have access to the remaining memory that Dorothy's injured central processing unit still possessed.

"Big O," the android stated coldly while moving only her jaw. "It is Showtime." The open hatch slid down from the megadeus' head to protect the cockpit. "And action," she added.

Slowly, clumsily, the black megadeus's huge ungainly arms moved upward to reach for its white counterpart. Massive metal fingers fumbled for the cockpit of Big Fau. The opening into Big Fau's cockpit was too small for Dorothy to fit even one of Big O's gunmetal black digits inside, so she had the ebony megadeus seize the sides of the opening and slowly, carefully attempt to tear the opening larger.

Roger was beginning to black out. He could dimly feel his legs kicking at Alex Rosewater, but the rest of his body had gone numb. The interior of Big Fau's cockpit had become dark and the ringing in his ears had blocked out any other sounds.

Suddenly a loud noise exploded through the control room. It sounded like a piece of one of the domes had fallen and hit a building. Then came the twisting shriek of metal and the klaxons of alarms from Big Fau's control panel.

"What?" Alex Rosewater loosened his grip to glance at the opening that Roger had entered through. "Who? The black megadeus?" He released the gasping negotiator and sat back down at his control seat. "Roger Smith, I swear that there is only room in this city left for one of us!" Rosewater sneered at Big O's image on the screen.

Roger gasped for breath on the floor, his senses returning to him in the form of searing pain on different parts of his body. His back, neck and head seemed to be competing for who could cause the most mind-numbing, paralyzing, agony to the half-throttled negotiator. His lungs forced him to breathe, even though his ragged throat vigorously protested every breath.

'Get up' a voice that sounded like his told him. 'Get up, Smith. You are a dead man if you don't get up.'

Roger staggered to his feet and leaned against the back wall of the cockpit to get his bearings. It wasn't long before he discovered that it wasn't just his wobbly legs that made the floor seem so unstable. Big Fau was moving. It was in a wresting match with Big O; only there was no pilot to fight back!

"Die, Roger Smith!" Alex cackled. "There is only one domineus, and that is me!"

Alex Rosewater was ignoring him. He seemed to think that Roger was in the Big O. Roger tumbled off his feet when the white megadeus lurched again. He looked around for something to strike the insane chairman with, for he didn't trust the strength of his useless limbs to do the job.

The negotiator was distracted by what he saw on the screens. The white megadeus was causing Big O to lose his balance. Giant chains shot out of the black megadeus' hips and anchored in the ground in an attempt to steady it. Who was piloting it, anyway? Somehow, Big Fau was managing to overbear Roger's megadeus with one arm severed from its body.

On a screen near Rosewater's feet, a familiar face appeared. "Roger Smith," Dorothy uttered, looking like a teenage medusa with the cables sticking out of her head. "Save your self," she commanded calmly. "There is no point sacrificing yourself on my account. I am what I am."

Dorothy! In his injured state, he had forgotten why he had entered Big Fau's cockpit in the first place. Dorothy's main memory drive dangled from the compartment he had pried it from, still connected to Big Fau by a collection of wires.

He grasped the drive, and tried to pull the wires out of its jack. It was stuck, of course. That was okay. He adjusted his watch and activated a laser that shot out to sever the wires that led to into Big Fau, freeing Dorothy's drive immediately.

"What? No!" Alex Rosewater cried as lights and panels inside Big Fau went dead. In the center screen between his pedals, the words "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD --- YE NOT…" scrolled by. "Not again!" Alex shouted. "What…what's happening to me? No…" Alex Rosewater's eyes shut and his chin rested on his chest.

What _had_ happened to him? Was his nervous system connected to Big Fau? When Big Fau was shut off, did the same thing happen to Rosewater? Who knew? And right now, who cared? Alex Rosewater could be dead for all Roger cared. Right now, it served the maniac right.

He crawled out of the cockpit into Big O's waiting hand. Slowly, carefully, the massive hand carried him to Big O's open cockpit. He leaped into the control room and let the cover lower to conceal him from sight.

"Good job there, you guys," Roger said hoarsely. "We make a good team." Once in control of Big O, it was a simple matter for Roger to regain the black megadeus' balance and push Big Fau away. He almost knocked the white megadeus over, but decided instead to simply lower the stricken Big Fau on its back, in order to minimize the damage.

Despite the aches and pains his body reported, Roger glanced around the ruined city and smiled. Paradigm city looked like a collection of children's blocks scattered all as far as the eye could see. The buildings closest to him displayed signs of damage and should be condemned. Still, it beat a blank grid of lines stretching into the horizon any day. "Ah, Paradigm City, I love this town!" He coughed after those words, and decided to use his words sparingly. "Come on," he grunted. "It's time to go home."

Watching the black megadeus thunder away was Colonel Dan Dastun perched in the command chair of his armored vehicle. "Well I'll be," the smiled. "That son-of-a-gun did it! Good job, Roger!" He turned to his men who were in other tank-like armored vehicles. "We did it, men!" he announced raising his voice. "We bought the black megadeus the time it needed!"

As his men cheered, Dastun forced himself to think of the future. What now? He hadn't considered there being any afterwards to worry about, but he was going to be damned if he let the white megadeus tear apart Paradigm City, orders or no orders.

Now what? The orders to let the white megadeus wreak havoc had come from the top. There was no getting out of this. He could start a civil war with the men that were loyal to him and his sense of justice, or he could surrender and face the music. A civil war would destroy what was left of civilization. Dastun didn't think that humanity could take any more of this and survive. Not right now. That left surrender.

If only it was that easy. Dastun was willing to face prison, but the idea of his men's careers being cut short for having the integrity to do the right thing made his skin crawl. If that happened, the military police would be the crooked corporate muscle that Roger said it was. Civilization wouldn't be worth preserving then.

He needed a lawyer, or better yet, a negotiator that could go up against the board and save his men's careers. A smile crossed his craggy face. A negotiator? He had sacrificed his career in order to save the life of the best negotiator in Paradigm City! If there was one thing that Roger loved more than saving the city, it was sticking it to the Paradigm Corporation. If he worked fast, there may be a way out of this yet…

In the heart of the city, outside of the domes that protected the neighborhoods and estates of the rich, stood a spacious tower that was formerly a bank before the disaster that left Paradigm City without memories. Roger Smith had converted this building into his personal abode. The building was large enough to hide the Big O inside. It was built over the nexus of the underground transportation system that Paradigm had enjoyed until four decades ago. The suites at the top floor were decorated like a Victorian mansion, the roof was a patio that had tasteful sculpture and a garden.

One side of the building had been defaced by the damage Beck's robots had caused during Dorothy's abduction. The roof patio was a mess. Still, the damage was all superficial, as far as Roger was concerned. His butler, Norman Burg, had survived and the damage to his belongings could be repaired or replaced.

One wound refused to heal, though. Dorothy Wayneright was still injured. For the moment, he let her remain in Big O's cockpit. While hooked up to the megadeus, she seemed to have regained most of her functions. In on a worktable, the tall and slender Norman Burg peered at Dorothy's recovered components through a jeweler's eyepiece.

"Fascinating, Master Roger," the elderly butler remarked, then removed the eyepiece from his single remaining eye. "This device is more sophisticated that it seems. I had hoped that swapping her memory drive would be easy once we uploaded her memory to the new hardware, but it looks as if we would lose more of her memory than we'd want to."

"We're going to restore her to mint condition," Roger announced grimly. "She's going to be operating at hundred percent efficiency with all of her memory and everything that is Dorothy Wayneright restored to normal."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but how are we going to do that?" Norman asked as delicately as he could.

"Simple," Roger smiled without mirth. "We're going to do what everybody does in this city when they want something done right. We're going to procure the services of an expert."

Hope began to flicker in the butler's eye. "Oh, I say! I hadn't thought of that. Did you have a particular expert in mind, sir?"

"Why yes," Roger replied. "I did. There is one person in the city who knows about androids and megadeuses almost as much as the late Timothy Wayneright."

"Oh, that is a stroke of luck for us, Master Roger," Norman smiled in a grandfatherly fashion as his voice betrayed a hint of amusement. "Who is this wayward genius, if I may be so bold, sir?"

"Wayward is only the icing on the cake, Norman," Roger grinned through gritted teeth. "You'll notice that I said 'expert' and not 'professional'. The expert that I have in mind probably hasn't held down an honest job in his life."

Amusement left the butler's voice to be replaced with concern. "Oh no, Master Roger, you can't mean…"

"I do," Roger nodded. "There is no one else. If we want to repair Dorothy properly, we are going to have find Jason Beck."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Have a Drink_


	5. Have a Drink

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Five: Have a Drink_

Roger Smith sat a worktable, using a set of specialized tools to tinker with a small device. A collection of weapons and gadgets in various stages of assembly was on the table before him. He looked up from his work as Norman entered the room and cleared his throat.

"Master Roger, you have a visitor," Norman announced quietly.

"Tell them I'm busy," he replied. "You know that rule I have about letting in beautiful women? It's suspended. Don't let anyone in unless it's Angel, Jason Beck, or Colonel Dastun." Or Gordon Rosewater, he thought silently, but the chances of a Rosewater entering the mansion were equal to the likelihood of Jason Beck having a change of heart and dedicating his life to fighting crime.

Norman's grim visage softened with relief. "Oh, that _is_ a stroke of luck Master Roger. The visitor is indeed Colonel Dastun."

"What?" Roger hadn't expected any visitor that he would be interested in seeing. Still, he had to admit that out of those he mentioned, Dan Dastun was the person most likely to drop by.

As usual, the burly cop was examining Roger's wine collection in the parlor. "This is the good stuff," Dastun said without turning around as Roger entered. "What's the occasion?"

"The bottles I normally keep there were shattered during the attack on my house," Roger retorted.

Dastun drew in a breath. The furniture smelled of mothballs and wood varnish. Had the negotiator been keeping copies of his furnishings in storage for such an emergency? The cop wouldn't put it past him. Still, it wasn't important.

"So, to what do I owe the honor of being visited by the military police?" Roger asked with a hint of sarcasm. "Coming to warn me of something or are you looking for a lead?"

Dastun turned around and removed his hat, exposing his bald head and the intricate network of scars on his dome. "Neither," the muttonchopped officer replied. "I'm here to hire you. I need the services of Paradigm City's top negotiator."

While Dastun's earlier gasp was silent, Roger's was clearly audible. Dan Dastun allowed himself a small smile. Whatever Roger was expecting him to say it obviously wasn't that.

"A negotiator?" Roger snarled in disbelief. "What do you need a negotiator for?"

"To keep me and my men from losing our jobs," Dastun said wearily. "Do you mind if I have a drink?"

"Help yourself," Roger shrugged. "As soon as we get this place back together you won't see _that_ particular bottle again," he winked.

Dastun sighed in relief. Roger being able to joke was a good sign. He picked up a glass tumbler, poured himself a drink, and sat down on Roger's couch. Roger chose a chair that was placed across from it.

Asking for help wasn't one of Dastun's strengths, so he took a sip and swirled the ice in his glass before speaking. Roger, damn him, just studied him with a slightly irritated look on his face.

"I disobeyed a direct order," Dastun admitted, "and my foolhardy act of virtue motivated the knuckleheads under my command to do the same. If we're lucky, we'll lose our jobs. If not, criminal charges could be filed against us."

"You've ignored orders before…" Roger began.

"Not when the marshal of the military police gave them to me in person!" Dastun snapped. "Not when _his_ orders came straight from the Paradigm Corporation's board of directors! I've never told the marshal to go to hell to his _face_ before!"

Roger nodded. Dan was too honest a cop to work for a bunch of corporate muscle like the military police forever. He was surprised it had taken him this long to reach this point. He let out a breath and asked. "So what did the marshal tell you to do, anyway?"

"Do you remember that white megadeus that was tearing the city apart the other day?" Dastun asked.

"Yeah," Roger replied with false levity. "Who could forget that one?"

"Well my men and I received orders not to interfere," Dastun growled. "The marshal told me that the orders came from the top."

That was no surprise to Roger. The white megadeus was piloted by Alex Rosewater, Paradigm Corporation's chairman of the board.

"I took an armored vehicle and started firing at it," Dastun told him. "Next thing I know, my men are doing the same thing. I never knew those slackers had it in 'em…" he said wistfully, then his voice became harsh. "We didn't have a choice! The black megadeus was in trouble, and once it fell, nothing was going to stop the white one from wiping out everyone who wasn't part of this 'new order'! I had to do something, no matter how futile!" Dastun crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch smugly. "It turns out that it wasn't as futile as I thought. Somehow, the black megadeus was able to turn things around. It just needed a distraction to buy it some time. I figure that whoever was piloting that thing owes me one."

Roger was already aware that Dastun knew that he was the pilot of Big O. Dastun simply refused to say it out loud. Even when Roger had tired of the dance, Dastun had refused to let it end.

"So you think I owe you, huh?" Roger smiled coldly. "Well it doesn't work that way. If you want me to negotiate with Paradigm for you, I want something in return."

"What!" Dastun nearly dropped his glass. "You've got to be kidding me! You greedy bastard! You owe me! Dammit, Roger, this isn't just for me, it's for my men! If Paradigm kicks every decent cop off the force, than the military police really _will_ be the corrupt group of enforcers you think it is! What will happen to the city then?"

"I didn't say that I wouldn't do it," Roger assured him.

"We can't pay your fees, Roger!" Dastun insisted. "You're dealing with the one group of cops too stupid to take bribes! What the hell do you expect out of us, anyway?"

"I want Beck," Roger replied.

"What?" That stopped Dastun's rant cold.

"Jason Beck," Roger clarified. "I want him. I want copies of all of the files you have on him. I'm going to find him, Dastun, with or without your help. I'd rather it was with."

"Beck?" stammered the confused cop. "What do want _him_ for? Need someone kidnapped?"

Roger rose to walk to the wall. "No, I was planning on doing the kidnapping myself." He reached out to a portrait mounted on the wall and it turned on a hinge like a door. Hidden behind it was a small safe. Roger's gloved fingers turned the dial a few times and he opened it to extract what appeared to be part of a DVD player. "This is Dorothy's main memory," he said as he showed it to Colonel Dastun. "Beck removed it from her skull. He's going to put it back in, just like he found it. I'm going to see if I can get him to cough up Dorothy's blueprints too."

As one of the few who knew Roger well, Dan Dastun often wondered just _how_ attached Roger was to Dorothy. The look in Roger's eye offered an answer. "I… see," Dastun stammered before he nervously emptied his glass. He picked up his hat and headed to the door. "I better hurry back to headquarters and get you those files before I'm locked out of my office." Dan said as he paused to put his hat on while Norman summoned the elevator for him. "Just think about what you're going to say to the board of directors, all right? I care about that android too, but don't forget about _my_ problem."

"It will be my pleasure," Roger smiled cruelly. "It will give me the excuse to say to them what I've wanted to say for years."

"Well don't have _too_ much fun," Dan warned him. "We still got to win this thing ya know!"

"Don't worry," Roger assured him. "I'm sure that Paradigm will make this anything _but_ fun."

"Ya got that right," Dastun groaned as he entered the elevator. "If you need an old dog to help you with the chase, call me day or night. I've got a feeling I'm going to have a lot of free time on my hands."

"Can do, Dan," Roger nodded, showing first hint of warmth he had during Dastun's visit. "We'll get through this, somehow. I promise you that."

"I'm gonna see that you keep that promise," Dastun retorted with mock hostility. He closed the gate and descended to street level.

After he left, Roger looked at a picture of his old squad. He and Dastun were prominently displayed in the center of their fellow officers. It was strange. Roger didn't seem to have physically aged since that picture was taken, but it seemed like forever since he quit the force. Now he was going to fight to ensure that a group of officers too honest for the military police would keep their jobs. Just more proof that the world of Paradigm City was too bizarre to be real.

As the sun dipped low on the horizon, Roger Smith's long black sedan navigated through the damaged streets of Paradigm. Between Big Fau and the aerial attack from the Union, driving less than a mile from the mansion took more time than usual. It was a relief when he pulled his car up in front of the working class bar known as the Speak Easy.

After he activated the griffin's defense system, he paused before entering the bar. In his delirium during the battle with Big Fau, Roger imagined that the Speak Easy was hit by an aerial shell and was leveled. He was relieved to discover that the damage was nowhere as extensive. Cracked windows and paint from a near miss were new to the place, but the Speak Easy had always possessed an air of shabbiness. Summoning his resolve he entered the bar as if nothing was wrong.

The bartender handed him a bottle of his preferred beer. There were less people at the pool tables, but the bar was still crowded. He took that as a good sign. He had half expected the place to be empty, or packed to the gills by those in despair.

Hiding behind his dark sunglasses, Roger approached his informant that he had nicknamed 'the Big Ear'. The old man was sitting in his favorite chair reading a copy of the _Paradigm Times_. In spite of himself, Roger was comforted at the thought that even if Paradigm City burned to the ground, Big Ear would still be found in his favorite bar reading the newspaper…

Roger gasped and froze in his tracks. A vision of the Speak Easy ruined by an airborne bomb danced in his recollection. He had seen a stricken Big Ear, still seated in his ruined chair, with half of his face torn off to reveal metal and wires underneath!

"Something wrong, Negotiator?" Big Ear glanced up at him in mock concern. "Do I have something on my nose?"

Roger straightened his coat and tried to pull himself together. Was Big Ear really an android? Was his vision true? And more importantly, did it matter? Nearly every sentient, self-aware android that he had met had been decent, quiet individuals who had no desire to cause anyone trouble. Dorothy's homicidal doppelganger was the sole exception. Every other android had followed Paradigm City's unofficial credo: Don't ask questions, don't attract attention, keep your head down, and try to earn a living.

That wasn't one hundred percent true, was it? Roscoe Fitzgerald was an android and was formerly an executive in the Paradigm Corporation. He had kept his memories from before whatever erased the past and had experienced economic power that no android had ever possessed. He had even gotten married and grown old with a human…

"Roger?" Big Ear never called him by his name. The negotiator's behavior must really be worrying the old man.

Roger snorted in indignation and sat down next to his informant. The whole damn city was filled with mysteries that didn't matter. The answers, hell, even the _questions_ would drive people insane and no one would benefit from the truth anyway. He had to focus and live in the 'here and now' instead of the 'maybe and never'.

"I'm looking for Beck," he snapped as if it was Big Ear who had acted out of turn instead of himself.

"That won't be easy," Big Ear was good enough to act like everything was normal. It was one of the things Roger liked about him. "Beck has gone underground. Something or someone has him running scared. That wouldn't be _you_, by any chance would it, Mister Negotiator?"

"Beck doesn't even know I'm looking for him," Roger shrugged, "but I'll let him know soon enough."

"Word has it that our little kidnapper is highly skilled in robotics," Big Ear continued as if he was discussing the weather. "It seems that the knowledge those memory fragments gave him has attracted the attention of certain people. People who could even make a hardened criminal stop in his tracks."

"He always _was_ too showy," Roger grunted.

"I heard a story that someone very high up in the Paradigm Corporation had an order of execution authorized with his name on it," Big Ear uttered with the slightest hint of amusement. "By holding that over his head they could have him work for them for nothing."

"Work for them?" Roger started. "Doing what?"

"That's a good question, Negotiator," Big Ear glanced pointedly at Roger. "All I can say that after Alan Gabriel collected him from prison, two megadeuses challenged the black megadeus. It's probably a coincidence, but…"

"That's not important!" Roger snapped. Big Ear was connecting the dots, but Roger had most of it already. So that was the hold Paradigm had over Beck. Still, it wasn't important. "Where is he now?"

"He's gone to into hiding, and has summoned his most trusted henchmen to help him," Big Ear sounded almost bored. "They won't talk and they are almost as hard to find as he is. I can tell you the location of a hangout where one of them is often seen. That particular lackey is fairly recognizable."

"Which one?" Roger asked.

"The one that looks like a clown."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Questions Unasked_


	6. Questions Unasked

____

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by __Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Six: Questions Unasked_

Roger Smith put on the body armor, and flexed his muscles to see how much mobility he would lose when wearing it. Too much, he decided, but he would have to make compromises somewhere. Lighter than a twentieth century flak jacket, the bullet proof vest that covered his torso was composed of a layer of disks bound in sturdy and heat resistant synthetic black fabric like medieval scale mail. Rather than being forged out of metal, the silver dollar sized disks were composed of a silicon carbide ceramic. The result was a flexible vest that allowed a greater range of motion while still providing more protection than ballistic nylon and heavy ceramic plates.

The vest worked great. He could move like an acrobat if he wanted. It was the arm and leg protection that was slowing him down, and would be nearly impossible to wear under his normal clothing. Perhaps he would have to go without protection on his limbs, but the memory of the bullet Dorothy's homicidal twin put through his arm a few months ago didn't make that option attractive.

Roger sighed as he removed the elbow protection and considered his options. The problem was, he decided, that a negotiation with Beck required him to go against his normal style of diplomacy. Normally, a negotiation required a measure of trust from both parties. In this case, there would be no trust at all. Beck was so crooked that he met himself going around corners and Roger's white-hot anger at the blond crook threatened to jeopardize his objective.

Only a fool negotiates for himself. Roger was too close to maintain a professional façade of objectivity. In addition, as a negotiator, he considered it a last resort to use force. In this case, the use of force was a guaranteed necessity. He was being pressured by circumstance to abandon his sense of style and adopt Jason Beck's: threats and coercion. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

It took all of the negotiator's willpower to slow himself down and think things through. After his first encounter with Beck, the wily criminal had shown an uncanny ability to predict Roger's moves. He couldn't afford to be predictable. Beck was too good at laying traps that Roger fell into. This time he had to trap Beck, not the other way around.

In addition, after the bizarre visions that he experienced while fighting Big Fau, the mysteries of Paradigm City became harder to ignore. Roger Smith's personal policy was to let mind shattering mysteries remain unsolved. Otherwise he would spend all of his time chasing after answers that were irrelevant to his daily life.

When it came to finding the answers to questions that shouldn't be asked, Roger couldn't help but think of Swartzwald. Michael Seebach had been a successful reporter, living inside the domes with a wife and kids. The journalist's personal quest to unearth the truth to the mystery that was Paradigm City had driven the reporter mad, leading him to eventually destroy his identity of Michael Seebach and call himself Swartzwald, after a mythical forest in a far off land. Swartzwald didn't know when to stop digging, and it cost him his identity, his sanity and finally his life.

Now, with visions of barcodes, megadeuses destroying cities, and children with shaved heads staring into fires swimming in his head it was easy to surrender sanity and devote oneself to the never-ending search for the _Truth_. For his sake and the sake of Dorothy Wayneright, he had to fight the temptation and keep himself focused.

Still, it was hard. The biggest mysteries in Paradigm City were right under his roof. Big O and R. Dorothy Wayneright herself. He couldn't resist the temptation to visit them.

He waited until Norman was preparing dinner. Big O was still in various stages of disassembly, and would be unable to fight for sometime unless a lot of man-hours were put into repairs. Roger sighed. It was depressing to see the black megadeus in such a vulnerable state like that. He felt that he had failed the giant robot somehow. Like Dorothy Wayneright, Big O had sacrificed so much for Roger Smith and now look what he had to show for it.

Roger looked up at the giant megadeus and spoke. "I'd like to apologize, old friend," he began, "Lately it seems that the challenges facing us have been getting harder and harder. But we both know that's not exactly true, is it? Sure the battles have been tough, but we should have done better shouldn't we? You shouldn't have gotten injured as much as you have."

Roger put his hands in his pockets and his eyes fell down to his shoes. "The truth is, you've been doing fine, Big O. The fights aren't any tougher than they used to be. They were always tough. The problem is human error. I've been slipping. Something has made me lose my edge, and you've been paying for it. I'm sorry. I'm going to focus. I'm going to pull myself together and get us through what lies ahead." Roger looked up at Big O's impassive face and clenched his fists. "You deserve better."

The black megadeus seemed to have an empathic link with Roger. Indeed, Roger suspected that it was Big O's telepathic ability that allowed Dorothy to function without her main memory: Big O had somehow provided his random access memory to the stricken android and that had allowed Dorothy to rescue Roger when Big Fau had hurled Big O and his pilot into the sea. So it came to no surprise that he sensed a response from the black megadeus. He was simply unprepared for the emotion he was sensing.

Roger expected forgiveness, or anger, or even grudging acceptance. He did not expect guilt, guilt so strong that it might have been grief. He could sense that Big O was trying to hide his emotions, so ashamed was the machine that was robot, weapon, warrior, and vehicle. Roger had just apologized for failing the Big O. The megadeus seemed to think the opposite was true, that he had somehow failed Roger, or hurt him somehow.

It didn't make any sense. The Big O had failed Roger? The megadeus was trying to hide its emotions from the negotiator? How hard is it for an immobile machine with an impassive expression sculpted on its face to hide an emotion? What could Big O have possibly done to hurt Roger Smith?

Perhaps the negotiator was simply projecting his emotions onto the giant robot. Perhaps Big O's shame was all in his mind, or while the megadeus was dormant whatever circuits were used to project his emotions simply reflected that of the pilot. Maybe Dorothy's condition was affecting Big O, and not just Norman and Roger. Maybe Roger was losing his mind.

In any case, it beat visions of barcodes and tomatoes, so the negotiator decided to take 'yes' for an answer.

Dorothy was still in Big O's cockpit standing like a sentry behind Roger's chair. Despite being hooked up to the black megadeus, she didn't seem lifelike. If anything, she seemed even less alive than she did when Roger entered Big Fau. Perhaps there was no need for Big O to donate his random access memory to the android girl while Roger's life was not in danger.

Could she still speak? Would Big O allow her to now that it wasn't an emergency? If Roger asked her the questions on his mind, would Dorothy be able to access the answers without her main memory restored to her metal and polycarbide skull? Would she be able to lie, or would she be forced to reveal the entire unvarnished truth to Roger's questions? Would her answers be hers or Big O's?

He wanted to know what she meant when she said that she wasn't like him. He wanted to know why she hadn't resisted her abduction by Beck's scorpion robots when she knew that she would be dissembled and used as a control circuit for an engine of mass destruction. He wanted to know if she was capable of love and if she loved him. Did she make decisions like a human being or were there an assortment of preprogrammed directives that made her who she was?

Suddenly, the negotiator felt very dirty. He was taking advantage of her vulnerability. If her disassembled state didn't allow her to conceal the truth, this would be an unforgivable invasion of her privacy. Jason Beck had committed numerous violations on the android in the past. No matter how low Roger had to sink to restore Dorothy Wayneright, he couldn't allow himself to do the same. The questions he had for Dorothy could wait until she was able to choose whether to answer them or evade them.

Still, here he was, facing the mannequin that was R Dorothy Wayneright. He felt like a fool as he stared into her empty eyes. He had to say something. "Dorothy, I don't know if you can hear me. I'm sorry that I put you in danger..." No. That was stupid. She was at the Smith Mansion when Beck's scorpion robots attacked. It wasn't as if he carelessly put her in harm's way. In addition, the mansion's security system was formidable, and Norman was there too. There was no need to blame himself. It wasn't as if he had a lot of forewarning about the attack on his mansion, and he had honestly believed that Dorothy was safe there.

The problem was that in the middle of the attack, Dorothy simply gave up, and let the scorpion robots abduct her. It didn't make any sense. She could have evaded capture or used her android strength to break free once trapped in the metal pincers. What did she mean 'I am not like you; I am not like other robots'? It was if she had just resigned herself to her doom.

If she was that weak willed, how did she manage to reanimate herself when Roger was in trouble? Her main memory was gone! Was it Big O pulling her strings? If so, why didn't the black megadeus force Dorothy to resist when she was being kidnapped? Big O had moved to protect Dorothy without Roger's guidance, so he was perfectly aware of the android's predicament. Too many questions. Small wonder that Michael Seebach went crazy.

Roger had decided moments ago not to ask any questions, but his temper got the better of him. "Damn it, Dorothy! Why did you let yourself get captured? If you would have resisted you wouldn't be in this fix! How could you just give up?"

Dorothy's quiet voice seemed as loud as a thunderbolt to Roger's ears. "I am not like you."

Roger took a step back and blinked away the salty tears that were stinging his eyes. Was he actually crying? He thought that he had closed his heart better than that. Even in her stricken state, the redheaded android had managed to get under his skin.

The negotiator rubbed his eyes and made exaggerated sniffing noises. He drew himself up to his full height and took a deep breath to regain his composure. All Dorothy needs is to see the indestructible Roger Smith bawl like a baby, he grumbled to himself sarcastically. He looked down at the slender girl. She was still staring straight ahead as if she hadn't spoken at all. Roger sighed. He couldn't resist the temptation. "What do you mean, you aren't like me?"

"I am not like other androids," she stated flatly, not moving a single part that was not necessary for speech. "I am not like you."

"What does that have to do with...?" He stopped himself and looked away. "I'm sorry, Dorothy. I'm out of line. I have no right to ask you anything while you're in this state."

To Roger's surprise, the lights in Big O's cockpit lit up. He felt the giant robot activate itself, and instinctively prepared for movement. A light from the main screen between the foot pedals attracted his attention. Roger was momentarily surprised the message on the screen: _Ye Not Guilty. _The broad-shouldered negotiator allowed himself to relax as Big O deactivated his systems, one by one.

Roger chuckled bitterly. "Ye not guilty," he muttered as he shook his head. "You're telling me I shouldn't feel guilty, aren't you?" he announced in the ceiling's direction. "You're saying it's not my fault. I'm only human. Thanks, Big O. Back at'cha."

Despite himself, he felt better. If anyone could understand R Dorothy Wayneright, it would be the megadeus that has wires hooked up connecting their central processing units. Was the megadeus giving him permission to ask Dorothy questions, or was it telling him that no questions were needed?

Roger clasped one of Dorothy's tiny hands in his. "You're more than just an android, Dorothy. Never forget that."

She didn't respond of course. How could she? Until her main memory was restored it was possible that she was _less_ than just an android. Roger defiantly clung to the feeling of confidence as he left Big O's cockpit to look for Norman.

At dinnertime, Roger assured Norman that his wry sense of humor had returned. "Dorothy sure is a pain in the butt, isn't she?" he quipped.

Rather than be offended, Norman Burg decided to share in the forced levity.

"Indeed, sir. May I inquire what trouble our young lady has managed to get herself in this time?"

"How does she do it, Norman?" Roger smiled. "How does that ill-tempered, unfeeling android get us to care so much? How does that heartless lump of metal get to be so loveable?"

"Ah," Norman nodded sagely. "It is easy to understand when one considers her primary function."

"Her primary function?" Roger blinked as his butler refilled his wine glass. "Since when does Dorothy have a primary function? I thought that all she was meant to do was exist."

"Ah, perhaps I misspoke," the butler replied mischievous innocence. "I merely meant that the fact that Dorothy is loveable is only to be expected in light of the reason she was created."

"Doctor Wayneright created her to be a replacement for his long-lost daughter," Roger offered, but still felt that he was being a bit thick. Norman's point was apparently too obvious to notice.

"Yes, he recreated his daughter," Norman agreed. "But why, Master Roger? Why create a robot daughter? Why have a flesh and blood one for that matter? What purpose does she serve?"

Having never had children himself, Roger couldn't help but feel out of his depth. "Purpose? Children don't have a purpose, do they Norman? They just… are… aren't they?"

"Ask any parent and they will tell you what a daughter's purpose is," Norman spoke gently, as if speaking to a dearly loved but slightly slow child. "The purpose of a daughter is to be _loved_."

That revelation stopped Roger cold.

Norman continued as if he was discussing the weather. "So naturally, anyone who gets to know Miss Dorothy, loves her. Quite simple, when you think about it. Dorothy is a bundle of contradictions because daughters are bundles of contradictions. Dorothy is lovable, because daughters are meant to be loved."

"Dorothy is a person… because daughters are people… by definition," Roger muttered to himself.

"Exactly, Master Roger," the butler beamed proudly. "I knew you'd see it."

Roger never stopped marveling at accomplishment of the late Timothy Wayneright. "Norman, have you… got a handkerchief? I think there's something in my eye…"

"Of course sir," the butler replied as he handed a folded white handkerchief to his employer. "I always keep them handy."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: I Own The Night_


	7. I Own the Night

_The Big O and all of its setting and characters are © Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

_Additional material © 20th century Fox_

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Seven: I Own The Night_

Bobo 'the Clown' Jacobs was a career criminal. During one job robbing the Paradigm Chemical Plant, he fell into a vat that bleached his skin white, dyed his hair green, and colored his lips blood red. Confronted with his new clown-like appearance, Bobo decided to become… a henchman. The role of criminal mastermind or homicidal supervillain just didn't suit him. He had never been very assertive, although he was good with tools and was a talented getaway driver. He was a henchman before the accident, and decided to stick with what he was good at.

Unfortunately, his new appearance made it easy to pick him out of a lineup, and few criminals wanted to associate with him. One exception was Jason Beck, alias Beck Gold, who was looking for talented mechanics to build and operate the Beck Victory Deluxe. After Beck and most of his henchmen were captured after two failed attempts to rob the Paradigm Mint of the plates used to print dollar bills, Bobo and Lou 'T-bone' Tortellini had continued to complete the giant robot on their own to break Beck out of prison.

After that, Bobo and T-bone were Beck's right-hand men. Jason Beck had even used what little influence he had with Paradigm to get them released from prison 'to speed the restoration of the megadeuses'. After Big Duo soared into the sky to disappear in an explosion (taking the psychotic Alan Gabriel) with it, and Big Fau was defeated, Beck, Bobo, and T-bone disappeared into the Paradigm City's underworld in the confusion.

The boss was running scared. Something happened during Beck's visit at the Smith mansion. Whatever it was, it was the straw that broke the camel's back (whatever a camel was). Bobo could understand. Hell, having a psycho like Alan Gabriel dangle a death warrant over your head could get to anybody. Being forced at gunpoint to use your skills in robotics and not knowing if you were going to be alive when you were finished had a way of wearing away at your nerves.

But the boss had thought of everything. A few scorpion robots had been left behind to break Bobo and T-bone out of Paradigm's hidden Megadeus hangar hadn't they? Now they were laying low, the lower the better.

Deep down, Bobo just couldn't understand it. What was Alan Gabriel up to before Big Duo soared away taking the homicidal cyborg with it? He and T-bone waited for Gabriel to betray his boss, Alex Rosewater, but apparently Gabriel was loyal to Rosewater to the end.

What was Rosewater after? Alex Rosewater was the ruler of the entire city, the ruler of, for all intents and purposes, what was left of the human race. So why was Rosewater using Big Fau to destroy Paradigm City? What was the point? Why destroy his own kingdom?

Bobo had a feeling that Beck knew why. That it had come to him while he was at Smith's mansion the second time around. That he had found out something he really shouldn't have. In this city, it didn't pay to know too much.

That was why Bobo 'the Clown' Jacobs was quite happy being a henchman, thank you very much. Had Jason Beck become too big for his own good? Had he become a player in a game with very high stakes? Who knew? All Bobo knew was that he was keeping his mouth shut. With luck, nobody knew that Beck had figured out, whatever he had figured out, and if Bobo and T-bone had their way, that was the way it was going to stay.

In the meantime, regroup, rebuild, and re… uh… somethin'. Revise. That was it. It sure as hell wasn't remember.

Aside of making trips out for groceries, Bobo and T-bone had been making themselves useful by collecting megadeus pieces before Paradigm's cleanup crews got all of them. They had scoured the junk yards to see if there were any android components they could find. Android components that were expensive or useful that is.

In the meantime, the boss had hired more bodyguards and kept to himself lately. That wasn't good. Jason Beck was a loud social animal, not a silent brooder. If he started dressing in black like a certain negotiator, Bobo and T-bone might have to find another criminal mastermind.

Thankfully, T-bone managed to break his boss out of that funk. Bobo would have kissed him, but people had been calling him a fairy as it was, so he settled for a manly hug.

"Hey boss," the short tubby beatnik said to his gold clad boss. His gold clad boss who's color recently, had been yellow. "Look what I found in an old train tunnel! It looks a lot like that doohickey we needed to pull out of that android's head, doesn't it?"

Jason Beck had been staring off into space, sitting in the dark smoking a cigarette. His haunted, dead eyes moved slowly in the direction of his short tubby henchman who hid his baldness under a black beret.

"It sure looks like that android's main memory, doesn't it boss?" Bobo added in his high-pitched effeminate voice.

Jason Beck frightened both his men when his thin skeletal face broke into a hideous grin. He sprung out of his chair so quickly that his two loyal henchmen jumped back in surprise.

"What?" He exclaimed as he snatched the thin disk drive out T-bone's hands. "Where did you get this? It's a Wayneright style memory drive! This is incredible!"

"I… I… found it in a train tunnel…" T-bone explained. I was hiding from the cops and I was scared out of my mind. Did you know that there's ghosts down there, boss?"

"I know all about the ghosts, you moron," he snapped.

"I tripped and dropped my flashlight," T-bone continued. "While looking for it I found this. Dumb luck huh?" he grinned.

"So, do you think we might be able to use it?" Bobo's squeaky voice asked him. "I mean, we cleaned it up and all. It looks like it's still in good shape. What do you think?"

"Boys," Beck smiled, "I think we're back in business!"

Alright. So Bobo hugged T-bone at that moment. But he didn't kiss him and that should count for something.

"Aw right! Boss!" T-bone cheered. "It's good ta have ya back!"

"It's good to _be_ back," Beck smiled back at him. "The time for laying low is over! Now is the time to start making some money."

"You took the words right out'a my mouth, Boss!" T-bone grinned.

"Okay, let's get to work on the next job," Beck took his comb out of his pocket and ran it through his blonde hair. "Heck, this calls for a celebration! Bobo, while T-bone and I get out the blueprints, why don't you go to the liquor store and get us some good stuff? We won't have to drink cheap beer anymore!"

"I'll be back in no time, Boss!" Bobo chirped. A smile on his deathly white face, Bobo skipped happily through the house on the edge of town that Beck had made his hideout.

"Hey, fellas!" the clown-like henchmen announced to a quartet of hoods sitting around a table playing cards. "The boss says we're back in action again!"

Like they cared. They were just hired muscle. As long as Beck paid them they didn't care either way. Still, Bobo was so happy that it didn't matter what they thought. All that mattered was the Beck was scheming again. It wasn't healthy for him to sit in the dark and brood like that. Now that Beck was himself again, they could build a giant robot and make some money!

At that moment, the doorbell rang. "Hey Bobo," one of the henchmen at the card table said. "As long as you're up, could you see who's at the door?"

"Sure fellas," said the smiling clown. "I was going out to the store anyway!"

As the lackey walked to the door an unsettling thought went through his head. What if it was the cops? Being taken to prison was bad enough, but being at the mercy of Paradigm would be a nightmare! Before he opened the door, Bobo stopped and put his eye to the peephole.

Through the peephole, Bobo could clearly see a tall broad shouldered man in a black suit running directly towards the door. In less than a second, Roger Smith had dashed to the porch and hurled himself at the door.

The door was torn from its rusty hinges and was flung into the room hurling poor Bobo before it. On top of the door was the black clad form of Roger Smith the negotiator.

Cigarettes still clenched in their teeth, the mercenaries rose from their seats and drew their pistols. Roger rolled off the door and used it as a shield as the crooks fired their guns at him.

Since none of the guns had silencers, the shots were heard by Beck and T-bone. "What the hell?" Beck's face lost all of its color. "What's going on?"

"It sounds like we have company, boss!" T-bone exclaimed.

Roger's door not only made a good shield, it was a handy weapon. Grabbing the end of it with both hands, he swung at the two crooks closest to him and was rewarded by two sold hits. Although an awkward weapon, the number of holes the shots put into it reduced the air resistance enough to use it effectively.

Dropping the heavy and unwieldy door, Roger found another shield he could use as a weapon: One of the thugs. Grasping the hood by the lapels of his jacket, Roger used him to ram the gunman next to him and get near the table. Roger was glad that he was wearing a bullet proof vest when a trigger happy hoodlum accidentally shot the man he was using as a battering ram. The bullet went right through the gunman to impact on Roger's vest. That's one of the rules of a gunfight, Roger thought warily. Don't hide behind the skinny guy.

Dropping his now dead weight, Roger pulled the green tablecloth up off the card table and used it to entangle the gunman's pistol. He flung the tablecloth around him to slap away the gunmen near him as he pulled a retractable baton off the baldric he wore under his jacket. With the push of a button, the baton elongated nearly six feet to become a staff. Soon the negotiator was a whirling dervish as he spun with acrobatic grace, while his staff impacted with his foes.

After breaking the requisite number of ribs, wrists, kneecaps and heads, Roger Smith retracted his staff back into a baton to survey his injured enemies and see if any of them was in good enough condition to talk.

Movement alerted him to a figure in the corner. It was Bobo Jacobs, the henchman who looked like a clown. He held a sturdy wooden baseball bat in his hands as if he was a samurai warrior. His face though, betrayed his fear.

"I-I'm going to hit you over the head with this bat, man!" he threatened the negotiator.

"Go ahead and try it, you joker," Roger dared.

Bobo's war cry sounded like a screaming schoolgirl, but his face displayed the requisite amount of rage that would cow an ordinary foe. Unfortunately for him, he was facing Roger Smith, former member of the military police and now the pilot of Big O.

With one swift motion, Roger sidestepped Bobo's charge and tripped the palefaced lackey, sending him head over heels into the wall behind him.

Roger pulled Bobo to his feet by the neck of his shirt and put his face next to his. "Where's Beck?"

"I haven't seen Beck!" Bobo lied. It wasn't out of bravery or loyalty, it was just a kneejerk reaction.

"Wrong answer," Roger picked up the skinny hood and threw him out the window. He didn't bother to open the window first, so Bobo hit the shatterproof glass, turning it into a spiderweb of crystal and fell back into the room. Roger grabbed Bobo again. "Where is he?"

"I tell you I don't know!" Bobo whined, for he was too stunned to actually consider telling him. When under stress, he tended to deny everything. That's what his lawyers always told him to do.

This time Bobo tore through the shatterproof window and made it to the outside of the building.

Roger clapped his hands together to get the dust off of them and walked through a door to the interior of the house. In the hall he caught a glimpse of T-bone, Beck's short and portly henchman who dressed like a beatnik. Roger's long legs had a lot of reach and his foot darted out to hit T-bone in the chin, knocking the automatic pistol out of his hand and sending the tubby crook to the floor.

Roger picked up T-bone's automatic pistol, but didn't bother frisking the criminal or even check to see if he was still alive. He did, however seize the pistol, just in case T-bone should regain consciousness and try to threaten him with it.

Roger's stint as a lieutenant in the military police made him hold the pistol out in front of him with both hands, just as he used to when searching an unsecure crime scene. Apparently it had been _too_ many years since he had been on the force, because he was almost instantly disarmed.

Wielding a fire axe was another bodyguard, this one in a white suit as if dressed up as a short Alex Rosewater. Roger ducked, spun backwards and weaved to avoid being chopped up by his newest assailant. When an opening presented itself the negotiator kicked his antagonist in the head, but although staggered, the axe man did not fall down.

Roger turned to flee up the hallway only to face a second man with a fire axe. This was getting ugly. For a second all three men paused to take stock of the new situation, and then the man before him swung.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Roger Strikes Gold_


	8. Roger Strikes Gold

_The Big O and all of its setting and characters are © Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

_Additional material © 20th century Fox_

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Eight: Roger Strikes Gold_

Roger grabbed the man's axe handle, kicking out at him to knock him away. He then turned and ducked just as the second man swung, leaning down against the wall on the opposite side of his assailant's swing. He rose to his feet to kick the thug in the white suit, only to duck the swing of the man in the green suit, who was now behind him since he had turned around.

A small mirror on the wall helped to extend Roger's peripheral vision, but even so, he had his hands full with these two axe wielding murderers.

Roger pressed his back to the wall, in order to get away from the blow of the muscle in the green suit, but it was no use. With the two men at opposite sides of him, at least one of them would be able to swing their axe at him, despite being in a narrow hallway.

Sure enough, the man in the white suit swung at him, and Roger's arms reached out to seize the handle before the head smashed into him. The thug in the green suit slashed down in order to strike the negotiator's arms, but Roger and the man in the white suit separated and drew back instinctively.

Ducking and crossing to the opposite wall, Roger was narrowly missed by the white suit's blow, and was gratified to see the axe get stuck in the wall for a moment. He dodged the second man's swing at him and put his arm up against the green suited man's axe once he had finished his swing.

Now the black clad negotiator was leaning against the wall with one arm holding the green clad man's axe and his body pressing on the back of the white suited man's axe.

It was then that Roger discovered that he wasn't the only one who could fight with his feet. Even though the thug in the white suit was shorter than Roger, one of his legs could still kick high enough to connect with Roger's torso.

Soon the man in the green suit took one hand off his embedded axe to punch at Roger. The negotiator was forced to block blows from his two assailants by using one hand and one leg while his body was immobilized holding two deadly weapons in place against the wall.

In less than two seconds, Roger had to abandon his position and move to the opposite wall. Without his presence, it would take no time at all for his foes to free their axes and come after him again. Time to end this.

Roger had enough distance to put his entire body into a kick that bowled the green suited man over. In the meantime his shorter opponent in the white suit had managed to wrest his fire axe from the wall and swing it over his head like a samurai warrior.

Roger dodged to his left and the blow pulled a sturdy brass sconce for holding candle shaped bulbs out of the wall. Roger's eyes bulged open in realization as he noticed the curving U shaped arms of the sconce entangle the axe head.

A powerful kick was enough to free the sconce from the wall and Roger used it as a weapon to parry the axes. Soon he had both axe heads entangled in the brass sconce and both his attackers were trying to pull their weapons free.

Now was his chance! Roger leaped high into the air and spread his long powerful legs in order to kick both his foes in their faces, sending them both to the ground.

Roger had no time to determine whether or not they were out cold because a door opened and another man burst out, grimacing and wielding an old-style Thompson submachine gun. Roger dashed down the hall and around a corner to dodge the .45 bullets that tore chunks out of the walls. The new thug took off after Roger and was surprised when Roger backhanded him as the gunman ran around the corner. Roger Smith was waiting for him!

Before the gunman could react, Roger bent over and picked up his weapon. "Where's Beck?" Roger asked as he level the tommygun in the bodyguard's direction.

"Dunno," the bodyguard croaked.

Roger Smith set the submachine gun on full auto and fired. He fired the gun at the stairs in case a new foe should appear there. He fired the gun behind him to kill any attackers sneaking up behind him. He fired over the bodyguard's head to make sure that he didn't get up and try anything.

"_Where's Beck_?" Roger roared.

"He's here," the bodyguard admitted weakly. It was obvious that Roger was not going to be stopped. "He's got to be in here someplace, I…"

"Quiet!" Roger ordered. The sound of an automobile starting its engine was unmistakable. Beck was getting away!

Roger turned and ran back to the front of the house. There was no way he was going to lose Jason Beck after he had gone through all of this to find him. The black clad negotiator's long legs propelled him over the comatose bodies of the lackeys he had battled and he arrived at the front door to witness Jason Beck's yellow sedan drive by the front of the house.

Bobo staggered to his feet to see Roger standing not two feet away with his back to him. Steeling his courage, Bobo lunged to tackle Roger from behind…only to be struck by the negotiator's elbow that had whipped up suddenly to jab the hapless lackey in the neck. Bobo collapsed back the ground as Roger activated his watch to summon the long black sedan known as the Griffin.

The onyx car drove up and opened its driver's side door as if the invisible man was offering Roger a ride. Without a word, Roger hopped in the car and took off after Beck.

Soon the two vehicles were roaring along the road towards Paradigm City.

This was an unfortunate complication. Somehow Roger had to stop Beck's car without causing a wreck that would kill the wily criminal. Big O was still in a state of disrepair, but he still had the Griffin! Time to do this old the old fashioned way.

Beck was speeding back towards Paradigm City. Of course he was. Aside of Paradigm, there weren't very many places to go. If you didn't want to go out into the dust covered wasteland, you had to head up the Hudson River. Trees had started growing along the river after the Event of forty years ago, and a few villages had been reclaimed from the wilderness, but that was about it. If Beck wanted to escape Roger, his best bet would be to lose him in the maze of streets called Paradigm City.

Roger was having none of it. His foot pushed the gas pedal down and his finger pressed a button on the dashboard labeled 'turbo'. The Griffin shot forward like a speeding bullet after Beck's sedan.

In his yellow car, Jason Beck glanced in the rear view mirror to check for pursuers. His eyes widened in recognition as a distant speck became a black Cadillac as it got closer. Soon the Griffin was so close that he could see Roger Smith behind the wheel. "Roger's car?" the blonde crook protested in disbelief. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

Roger flicked a switch and the Griffin's front bumper split in half to reveal a tri pronged grappling hook. With a pneumatic hiss, the grapping hook shot forward, trailing a silvery cable as it imbedded itself in the back of Beck's car.

"What the hell?" Beck exclaimed as an abrupt jerk caused him to lean forward pressing against the shoulder restraint on his seatbelt. "Dammit! What's wrong now?"

At that moment, the bumpers of Roger and Beck's cars were touching. Roger pushed another button and forklift style arms poked out from underneath his front bumper. Slits in the grill of the Griffin slid open to allow the arms to raise the back of Beck's car off the ground. With his rear wheels unable to achieve traction, Beck was helpless as Roger let both cars coast to a stop.

After uselessly pressing his foot down on the gas pedal, Jason Beck shut off the ignition and got out of the car to face his pursuer. "Roger Smith?" he said to the man in black who as standing less than five feet away, glaring at him. "What do you want? I don't have anything, Alex Rosewater is the one you want…"

Roger's punch was so vicious and unexpected that not even Beck's reflexes were ready for it. "Hey!" the blond crook gasped as he fell backwards on his rump. "What was that for?" He stopped when he noticed that Roger was pointing a small snub nosed pistol at him. "A gun? Since when do you use guns?"

"Empty your pockets, Beck," Roger instructed.

Beck's eyes were still on the gun. The pistol was so small it was hard to see with Roger's black gloved hand around it, but the small snubnosed barrel was unmistakably pointed at him. "Hey! Who do you think you're…"

The gun in Roger's hand made an ominous clicking sound.

"Okay!" Beck's face had a huge comical smile. "Empty my pockets! No problem! Let's see what I've got here…" He pulled a pistol out of his jacket with the thumb and forefinger. "A pistol! That looks pretty dangerous!" The criminal tossed it over his shoulder. "Let's check the pants… what do we have here? A knife!" Beck extracted a stiletto from a special sheath that was strapped to his ankle. He set the knife down carefully, and then pushed it away. "I gotta tell ya, crow-boy, it's hard to run with that thing attached to your ankle." He opened his jacket and made a big show of checking his pockets for more weapons. "Anything else? Nope! A box of cigarettes! Is it okay if I keep that? I really…"

"Your comb," Roger interrupted him.

"What?"

"Your comb, Beck," Roger repeated. "Get rid of it. It's got a taser with a shock strong enough to paralyze an android."

Beck's smile vanished to be replaced by an irritated frown. "Oh. _That_." From the look on his face, Beck really didn't want to part with his comb as he pulled it out of his jacket pocket and set it down on the ground next to him. Roger allowed himself a smile. It was obvious that Beck had intended to ambush Roger when the opportunity presented itself.

"Okay, stand up," Roger snapped. When the blond criminal complied, the negotiator ordered, "Put your hands on the car. I'm going to frisk you myself."

"Okay," Beck quipped as he stood up and placed his hands on his vehicle, "don't try anything kinky or my parole officer will hear about this!"

Roger groaned as he stepped forward to pat the wily felon down. Suddenly, Beck's long leg kicked out behind him to trip the negotiator. In less than a second, Beck had turned around and jumped on Roger to struggle for the gun.

As the two enemies rolled on the ground, their clothing flashed black-gold-black-gold. Almost as if they were a coordinated pair, they separated and scrambled to their feet.

Beck had the tiny short barreled pistol and was grinning like a maniac. "Too bad, Crow-boy!" the golden gunman taunted. "You should have stuck to negotiation and left the strong-arm stuff to me!" Beck pulled the trigger and whooshing noises were heard, accompanied by tapping sounds as the projectiles hit Roger's chest.

"Huh?" Beck glanced at the gun. "This thing doesn't have a silencer! What?" He peered at Roger's chest only to see what looked like green glass beads embedded in the negotiator's white shirt. Closer inspection revealed that they were tiny syringes. "Tranquilizer darts? You held me at gunpoint with _tranquilizer darts_?"

"It doesn't take much to threaten you when your gold suit's turned yellow," Roger's grin held no warmth.

"Why you!" Beck swung at Roger, but the man in black stepped backward with each swing to dodge and weave out of the way.

"Careful, Beck," Roger warned. "You don't want to damage those perfect safecracker's hands of yours."

"You let me worry about my hands!" Beck growled as he furiously punched at the evading negotiator. "You can't keep this up, Roger! I've put enough tranquilizer in you to knock out an army! Ouch!" he squealed as his left fist finally made contact with Roger's midsection. "Body armor?"

"I warned you," Roger tutted as he used the opening to seize the yellow criminal and twist his arm behind his back. "Those hands are very precious to me. They may have been designed for safecracking, but they can double for the hands of a surgeon."

Beck's protests were muffled as Roger used his free hand to cover the crook's nose and mouth with a handkerchief that reeked of chloroform.

"Now I want you to do me a favor and breathe deep…" Roger instructed.

Despite his spirited struggles, Beck couldn't hold his breath forever. Soon the tall blond's lanky body went limp and Roger turned him around. With one hand, the negotiator held Beck up by his collar as his other hand pulled back and punched the talented felon in the jaw. Aside of a muffled groan as he fell backwards onto the Griffin, Beck gave no reaction.

"Just checking," Roger smiled cruelly. He picked up the gold suited felon and put him in the passenger seat of the black sedan, then entered the driver's side himself.

Roger's black gloved hand flicked a switch and removed a microphone from the dashboard that was still attached with a curly wire. A black and white television screen was filled with static before clearing into an image of Norman's face. "Yes, Master Roger?" said the attentive butler.

Roger noticed that Norman was wearing a construction helmet. "Norman, I can see that you're busy, but please prepare a room for our guest. We need accommodations for one Jason Beck, alias Beck Gold."

"Wonderful Master Roger!" the old man gushed. "I take it your search was successful?"

"That's right," Roger grinned as he glanced over at the passenger seat to view the bruises forming on Beck's face. "You could say that I've struck Gold!"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: The Unwilling Guest _


	9. The Unwilling Guest

_The Big O and all of its setting and characters are © Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

_Additional material © Scott Adams_

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Nine: The Unwilling Guest_

"Wakey-wakey," Roger's mocking voice called through Beck's delirium.

"Errm," Beck grunted as he struggled through the gray fog that enveloped his consciousness. He had a dream where women that looked like Angel were poking him with sharp sticks. "Urrrumahem," he cleared his throat noisily, then tried to sit up. He couldn't. It was as if he was being held down. He opened his eyes to squint at a light being flashed in his face. "What's going on? Is it time for school already, Mommy?"

"Wake up, Beck!" Roger's voice snapped, now with no trace of the levity it had previously. "Wake up you useless pile of rat droppings!"

A warm liquid splashed on Beck's face and he could taste coffee. "Ow!" he protested. "Ow! Ow! Hey!" the blonde crook squirmed in his bindings. "That's hot!"

"I can't say much for the flavor, but you have to admit, it _does _wake you up in the morning," Roger quipped, some humor returning to his voice as he set down the now empty coffee mug.

"Roger Smith!" Beck was fully awake now. He was strapped to a table that as if he was Frankenstein's monster, or an android in need of repair. "What's going on? Let me go!"

He was silenced when Roger backhanded him across the face. "_That _was an attention getter," Roger told him. "You know, Beck. I'm surprised at you. Weren't you the one who said that I should be more involved in kidnappings instead of merely negotiating from the sidelines?"

"If I answer, are you going to hit me again?" Beck managed to sound cowed and defiant at the same time.

"Probably," Roger shrugged. "You've got an ass that I'd dearly like to kick right now."

"What do you want?" Beck whined as he struggled against his restraints. "I don't have Dorothy's memory drive, dammit! The one you want is Alex Rosewater not me! I…"

"Then what is _this_, pray tell?" Roger dangled a square that contained a plastic disk in front of the blond felon's face. "I found it in your car."

"Oh _that_!" Beck smiled guiltily. "One of my men found that. The one you want is in Alex Rosewater's megadeus."

"And how would you know that?" Roger smirked.

"I… installed it in there…" the criminal admitted sheepishly.

"I know you did," Roger nodded.

"Argh!" Beck choked a cry when Roger punched him in the stomach. He couldn't block the blow, just writhe in pain and gag helplessly.

"And I'm rather upset about that," Roger continued calmly. "As a matter of fact, that's why you're here."

"Revenge?" a terrified Beck found his voice. "You brought me here for _revenge_?"

"No," Roger clarified. "_This_ is for revenge." He seized the crook by his blond hair and slammed the back of Beck's head against the table.

"Ow! Stop!" Beck whined.

"I brought you here for the same reason Rosewater had you sprung from prison." Roger continued. "I need access to your memories and technical expertise."

"Stop hitting me!" Beck shouted.

"Beck, are you listening to me?" Roger picked up a hammer and took a few practice swings in the constrained criminal's direction.

"I'm listening! I'm listening!" Beck cried. "You've got my undivided attention! I swear!"

"Good," Roger's smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Now that Doctor Wayneright is dead, you are the foremost expert on androids, aren't you?"

"Sure," Beck groaned. "I've got a P H frickin' D!"

"You're going to restore Dorothy's memory drive to its rightful place," Roger stated as he set the hammer down where Beck could see it.

"I don't got it!" Beck whined.

"That's okay," Roger assured him. "I do."

"What?" Beck blinked in disbelief. "That's impossible! It's inside the white megadeus! I installed it myself! There's no way you can get it out of there!"

"I've already gotten it out of there," Roger's told him, "and I've got the bruises to prove it."

"What about Rosewater?" Beck asked him.

"What about him?" Roger replied. There was silence while Beck looked into Roger's cold dark eyes.

It was Beck who looked away first. "Oh…kay you've got Dorothy's hard drive. So what do you need me for anyway?" Beck squirmed in his restraints. "Just put it back in yourself. What's the problem?"

Roger's outburst caught the criminal by surprise. "The problem is that when you removed Dorothy's memory drive you also removed her I/O peripherals you idiot!" Roger shouted. "Now we need _you_ to reinstall them! And you're going to, or else!"

Beck had to bite his bottom lip to avoid blurting out "Or else what?" Given his agitated state, Roger was liable to do anything. Instead the blond crook closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Okay," he open his eyes when he had regained his composure, "and what shall I do with my other hand?"

"Dorothy's blueprints," Roger answered. "Where are they?"

"What?"

"While Miguel Soldano was dying, Dorothy told me that he had her constructed from a set of blueprints," Roger explained. "Later, while kidnapping Dorothy a second time at the Nightingale, you said that you no longer needed Timothy Wayneright's memories."

"I said _that_?" Beck seemed to be genuinely surprised.

"Yep," Roger nodded coldly. "Right before one of your men shot him."

Sweat began to trickle down Beck's forehead. "H-hey that wasn't my fault," Beck's voice quavered in fear. "I never gave the order to fire. Dorothy scared him when she showed off how strong she was!"

"Did Dorothy show how strong she was when you had Miguel Soldono killed?" Roger asked in a dangerous voice. "Did Dorothy threaten you when you had Francis Wise shot in order to frame _me_ for his kidnapping and murder?"

"Er," Beck muttered as his eyes bulged out in fear.

"Did Dorothy threaten you when you tore out her memory drive and put it in Big Fau?" Roger demanded. "When you installed her entire body inside Dorothy One? When you overrode her motive units and tried to have her _kill me_? Huh? Answer me, Beck!"

"I'm going to stop talking now," the fearful felon said in a quiet voice.

"Not until you tell me where Dorothy's blueprints are," Roger shook his head. To Beck's relief, he was using his 'command' voice instead of his 'homicidal rage' voice. "You said while you were kidnapping Dorothy that you 'no longer needed that crusty codger's memories'. That means that you _did_ need them before, but suddenly you didn't. Now why is that?"

"Um," Beck wasn't sure if he was expected to answer.

"Because before you went to the Nightingale to kidnap Dorothy, you made a stop at Wayneright's house to steal her blueprints. That's how you _knew_ that Dorothy's main memory was compatible with a megadeus. That's why you didn't need Timothy Wayneright's technical knowledge anymore. The memory fragments stuck in your head may have made you a genius in robotics, but you still needed the blueprints to find out how someone as advanced as R Dorothy Wayneright ticks! Don't play dumb, Beck! Where are the blueprints? And if you say you destroyed them I'll cut off a toe!"

"What?" Beck managed to raise a skeptical eyebrow despite his fear. "Cut off a toe? What kind of a threat is that?"

"I don't want to damage those safecracker's hands of yours, Beck," Roger explained. "I've been thinking of what I can do to you that won't affect your ability to restore Dorothy. Come to think of it, if you were missing some teeth it shouldn't affect your hand-eye coordination either."

"I don't believe this!" Beck shouted. "You stinking ingrate! And after I helped save your bacon, too!"

"What are you talking about?" Roger raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I'm the one who told Dorothy that if she plugged herself into your megadeus you could access a weapon that could destroy Big Fau," Beck explained. "The reason she knew how to defeat the white megadeus is because of _me_. _I_ told her!"

Roger raised an eyebrow. He hadn't assumed that part of his experience was real. "Was it Dorothy's memory drive that gave Alex's megadeus its force field?"

"Probably," Beck tried to shrug in his confined state. "I dunno. It came to me when I was hit by lightning."

"When you were _what_?" Roger couldn't hide his surprise this time.

"You think that you're the only one that strange things happen to?" Beck asked him. "This town is _nuts_, Crow-boy. So is everybody in it."

Roger couldn't answer. He was looking at a sky replaced by a glowing grid, at visions of a robot factory that made Roger Smiths, at a battlefield. He saw dozens of Big O style megadeuses, their dull black armor gleaming in the light of the burning city and the glare from their own lasers, charging into battle while Big Duos flew through the air, the lights of their fire burning in the sky. The glowing and transparent megadeus called Big Venus was marching towards him, causing buildings and landmarks to vanish in its wake…

Beck looked away. "I rest my case," he muttered.

Roger shook his head to force himself back to reality. He found himself slumped to his knees and trembling. Great. Just what he needed. A display of weakness in front of Jason Beck.

He rose shakily to his knees and cleared his throat. So much for putting the fear of God into the criminal. He could only attempt to regain lost ground. "Ahem. As I was saying, I want to be able to check your work, so where are Dorothy's blueprints? You must have them stashed someplace."

"Are you all right, Crow-boy?" Beck wasn't making jokes. He was eyeing Roger critically and worse yet, thinking. Bad things happen when guys like Beck think. "You look really out of it."

"That's none of your concern!" Roger growled, then clenched his teeth and caught himself. So far he had channeled his anger into a performance designed to cow Beck into doing his bidding. Now he was using it to hide his weakness, and Beck knew it. "Just cough up those plans, Beck, I mean it!"

"You really ought to see a doctor," Beck continued with dangerous calm. "The idea of being captured by someone who's not all there scares the stuffing out of me."

"In case you haven't noticed, the last week has been hell on me," Roger grumbled. "I'll be fine. You worry about Dorothy, got it?"

"Where is she anyhow?" Beck looked around. "Is she still defying the laws of science by walking around without any memory?"

Roger's voice was still angry, but at least he had regained control. "No. She's been pretty still lately. She hasn't moved a servo in the last few days."

"Few days?" Now it was Beck's turn to lose control. "How long was I out?"

"We kept you out for about two days," Roger smirked. "We didn't want the workmen to ask any questions or for you to get away in the confusion. Now that Big O and the mansion are repaired, Norman and I can devote our attention just to _you_."

"You son of a…"

"Blueprints, Beck," Roger reminded him. "Where are they?"

"Let me get this straight," Beck pretended to be bored. "You hate my guts, you're emotionally unstable, I'm totally helpless, and you want me to hand over my one bargaining chip? I expected more from Paradigm City's top negotiator."

Roger was afraid of this. Beck had figured out that if a man could repair and maintenance a megadeus, a set of Dorothy's blueprints could very well give that man the technical knowhow that would make Jason Beck redundant. Trust wasn't a commodity a snake like Beck had a lot of. For all he knew, Roger would dispose of him once he was finished. It was a difficult tightrope to walk. On one hand, Roger had to scare the crooked genius silly so he wouldn't double-cross him. On the other hand, he couldn't afford to scare the felon so much that Beck felt that he had no choice but to betray Roger for his own survival.

"So you want to bargain?" Roger tried to make the statement sound mocking, but he was opening negotiations. He hated to give Beck an inch or make the golden criminal think that he was negotiating from a position of weakness though. Once Beck had the advantage he wouldn't give it back.

"Sure, why not?" Beck shrugged awkwardly. "What have I got to lose?"

"Okay," Roger shrugged as well. "What do you want?"

"My freedom comes to mind," Beck said with a silly smile.

"Done," Roger nodded. "I was going to give that to you anyway."

"Are you kidding me?" the fettered felon asked in disbelief. "You're going to let me go, just like that?"

"Until we find out what kind of government we're going to get now that the 'new order' has been cancelled, I don't trust handing you over to the authorities where Paradigm can get a hold of you," Roger shrugged. "If I killed you, I'd be killing the goose that laid golden eggs and I wouldn't be able to look Dorothy in the face if she knew I killed a helpless man in cold blood."

"You could always lie about it," Beck didn't seem convinced.

"She'd see through it," Roger sighed. "She always does. If I let you go I'd be able to come and get you anytime I needed you," Roger smirked at Beck's indignant frown. "Of course, if I thought you were going to betray me, who knows what I'd do? You going to play ball, Beck?"

The criminal paused in thought. "I don't suppose there's any money in it for me?"

"Pay you to undo a crime that you committed?" Roger asked skeptically. "I don't think so."

"Believe it or not, that was not my idea," Beck countered, "and the crime was state sanctioned. I regret taking part in that whole 'new order' thing. I'm glad you beat Rosewater, Crow-boy. He was crazy. You are definitely the lesser of two evils."

"Back at'cha," Roger grunted, "but saying 'I was just following orders' doesn't excuse the crime you've committed."

"Hey, what do you want out of me, anyway?" Beck whined like a child. "I said I was sorry. They had a death warrant on one side and a full pardon and a paycheck on the other. What would _you_ do?"

Roger answered him with an icy glare.

"Okay, I'll restore Dorothy to normal in exchange for my freedom," Beck sighed, "but the blueprints, they will cost extra. If you want them, you'll have to buy them. We'll haggle on the price later."

Roger grunted and nodded.

"In the meantime," Beck spoke calmly and then shouted. "Untie me! I've gotta go to the bathroom!"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Getting in Dorothy's Head_


	10. Getting in Dorothy's Head

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Ten: Getting in Dorothy's Head _

Beck ate his breakfast as noisily and obnoxiously as he could. He slurped his coffee, chewed with his mouth open, and made himself as childishly annoying as possible. Afterwards he made a big show of picking his teeth.

Roger could only watch in impotent rage. He had to keep an eye on him at all times. No matter how conciliatory or cooperative Beck pretended to be, there was no doubt that if an opportunity to turn on Roger arose, the criminal would feel obligated to turn the tables on the negotiator. Roger supposed that it was only a matter of time for Beck to try something, and had to keep up his guard in the meantime.

Beck, for his part, passively resisted by being as irritating as possible. The trick was to make it all look involuntary, but the criminal's dopey grin gave the show away. By subtly testing his limits, the wily crook could see how much Roger needed him while simultaneously make the negotiator angry enough to make a careless mistake.

Roger, of course, knew that this was Beck's tactic, but caught himself looking away from the criminal's disgusting display of eating at least twice. He knew that Beck was watching him as carefully as he was watching Beck, and that the golden crook was keeping track of every mistake Roger made.

Norman had been instructed to stay out of the felon's reach at all times. It wasn't that Norman Burg couldn't handle himself physically against Jason Beck, it was the fact the Norman was armed, and there was no sense letting a pickpocket like Beck have the opportunity to acquire a firearm.

As Beck practiced his after meal belching, Roger decided it was time to distract clownish kidnapper from his ridiculous performance. "Tell me something, Beck," Roger began. "Why is it that in all of the times we've clashed you've never once attempted to take control of Big O?"

"Hm?" Beck made a big show of being surprised by the question. "Why Crow-boy, should I? Would you like me to take control of your megadeus? I thought you wouldn't let me go near it, but if you insist…"

"Quit clowning around," Roger snapped. "You know what I mean. When you had me kidnapped and created that ridiculous facsimile of me, you had it lead Big O to the edge of the sea to get rid of him. You never once tried to take control of Big O yourself."

To Roger's satisfaction, Beck squirmed in his seat. "Well, uh, Roger, um, I was working on a giant robot of my own, ya know. I didn't really need yours…"

"Big O defeated your robot in less than a minute," Roger pointed out mercilessly. Your RX3 was no match for Big O."

"Don't remind me," Beck grumbled.

"So why settle for building a cheap imitation?" Roger prodded. "Why not go for the real thing?"

"My Beck the Great RX3 was not a cheap imitation!" Beck exclaimed angrily. "I designed it myself! It could separate into three vehicles for crying out loud!"

"You have never tried to steal Big O," Roger continued. "As a matter of fact, unless I miss my guess, you had the opportunity to hijack Big Fau and Big Duo but you never did. Why not?"

"Well, uh, Paradigm's goons kept a close eye on me…"

"Why build the RX3 if you knew that kidnapping me was the key to controlling Big O?" Roger asked. "You never once tried to take control of him."

"Quit playin' around, Roger!" Beck growled. "I think you know the answer already!"

"Oh?" Roger's face had an exaggerated expression of innocence. "And what is that, pray tell?"

"I didn't try to rip off your megadeus for the same reason you call it 'he' and not 'it'," Beck announced. The criminal smirked when Roger gasped and continued. "Call it a hunch but I think that the megadeuses are alive in their own unfinished way, and they won't accept just anybody as a domineus."

There's that word again, domineus. Roger raised an eyebrow. So far, no one but an enemy had ever used that word. "'Domineus,' huh? Where did you hear that word, anyway?"

"It popped into my head during my last prison break," Beck tapped the side of his head with a forefinger. "Anyway, it's pretty obvious that the domineus and the megadeus gotta be in sync," the crook continued. "Otherwise, bad things happen."

Roger snorted with faked contempt. "And just how does a megadeus grade its pilot? What's the criteria?"

"Well, the criteria is probably based off the first guy who used it as a domineus," Like Roger, Beck attempted to make light of the conversation. "The first guy probably sets the standard."

"So how does a machine determine who's worthy in the first place?" Roger asked in a mocking tone. As long as he could make Beck squirm, he had the upper hand.

"Haven't you ever noticed the message that scrolls across the screen?" Beck asked. "'Cast in the name of God, Ye not guilty'? Or does it not say that in yours?"

"I'm asking the questions Beck, you know too much about Big O already," the negotiator responded in a wry tone. "How would a machine determine who's guilty anyway?"

"Oh that's the clever part, Crow-boy," Beck smirked. "The Bigs seem to have some kind of telepathic device installed. My guess is that they read the brain patterns of the pilot and make judgment calls based on the pilot's sense of right and wrong." Beck pointed at his ear in his exaggerated manner. "Deep down, the domineus knows if he's guilty or not."

"So you're saying that each domineus in effect judges himself?" Roger frowned. The theory seemed to fit the facts, but there was no proof one way or the other.

Beck shrugged. "It's a bit metaphysical but it's the only fair way."

"That doesn't sound very helpful," Roger grumbled. "A delusional fanatic with no doubts to his insane cause could pilot one."

"Yeah but those jokers are so unstable that they self-destruct," Beck shrugged. "It's only a matter of time before they go from having a god complex to having an inferiority complex. And when that happens, they don't want to be in the megadeus or else, pow!" Beck's gesture symbolized an explosion.

"Is that what happened to Alan Gabriel?" Roger asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"Absolutely!" Beck was practically jumping up and down in his seat as he laughed like a hyena. "He was a sadistic freak and he knew it! I'm surprised it took as long as it did for the Big Duo Inferno to give him the boot!"

"What about you?" Roger asked slyly. "Would a megadeus consider you 'guilty'?"

Beck seemed to find this question funny. "Roger, I'm a professional criminal! I know I'm guilty and I can produce the court records to prove it! I wasn't sent to prison for jaywalking, ya know!"

"No," said Roger Smith in a cold voice. "You were put in prison for kidnapping, murder, and robbery."

"Oh!" Jason Beck became worried as the realization of his self incrimination dawned to him. "_That_. Heh-heh-heh," he hunched his shoulders and chuckled sheepishly.

"Come on," Roger ordered. "The sooner you restore Dorothy the sooner we don't have to look at each other anymore."

Roger and Norman led Beck into another room where Dorothy Wayneright was waiting for them. She was lying on a table, her head on a pillow. Her unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling. The gap in her head was like a mouth screaming mute accusations at the blond criminal.

"Okay, get to work," Roger snapped.

Beck squirmed uncomfortably and backed away, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll uh, supervise," he muttered. "You can be my hands."

"What's wrong with your hands?" Roger growled.

"Nothing, nothing," Beck assured him. "I just don't think that you want to give me the opportunity to cop a feel. Don't want you to break my fingers because I got too close to your android _lover_." He smiled his smart aleck smile.

Roger was tempted to slug the wisecracking criminal right then and there. He wouldn't put it past Beck to examine Dorothy's pert and slender body with his grimy hands out of morbid curiosity, let alone sexual perversity. To Roger's shame, he had fantasized doing the same thing once or twice. He only hoped that hands were the only part of Beck's anatomy that the twisted criminal had probed her with.

"Just get over there and stop stalling!" Roger shouted as he grabbed Beck by the lapels and pushed him in Dorothy's direction. Norman, for his part simply watched the spectacle with an amused eye and kept his distance.

"Touched a nerve did I?" Beck smirked. "I must have hit you pretty close to the mark to get you all riled up like that."

Norman drew the hammer back on his revolver with an audible click. He didn't point it at Beck. The barrel was facing the floor. Then again, he didn't need to.

"Okay, time to get to work," Beck nervously sighed as Roger set a toolkit down on the table by Dorothy's feet. The gold suited kidnapper flinched as he looked down at Dorothy's staring eyes. He raised his hand over her face to close her eyes, then backed away without touching her.

While normally Roger would have been overjoyed at the idea of Beck being hesitant to touch Dorothy, now wasn't the time. "What's wrong now?" Roger snarled sarcastically. "Don't tell me you're finally growing a conscience!"

"She won't… move will she?" Beck asked shakily. "Not until I'm finished. She won't move until then, will she?"

"What are you scared of her or something?" Roger asked skeptically. He surprised to see that most of the color had left Beck's face. "That's it, isn't it? You're scared! She really unnerves you doesn't she? What's the matter, feeling guilty? Or are you not used to the people you murder coming back to life?"

Beck's glassy stare at Roger would have frightened most people, but the black clad negotiator could only feel a twinge of satisfaction. None of the other people that Beck had murdered got up and walked around before. When Roger was in danger of drowning, Dorothy had somehow reanimated herself despite the loss of her core memory. Although it had unnerved Roger, the party responsible must feel terrified. Just the idea would be unsettling, but to witness it with one's own eyes…

"Just get to work," Roger snorted as he closed Dorothy's eyes. "Don't let your hands shake or I'll give you a reason to be scared. Now put her back together right now!"

Beck gave Roger an indignant death glare and adjusted his jacket. He took a deep breath and drew himself to his full height and rocked back and forth on his heels before holding out his hand and speaking. "Okay, get me a jeweler's eyepiece and a light."

The next few hours were spent hunched over the opening in Dorothy's head. Roger would pass Beck the tools he needed. Norman would calmly watch them with his pistol at the ready. When her input/output peripherals were replaced there was only one more step.

"Okay, now to install her main memory and she'll be as good as new," Beck assured him.

"Get away from her," Roger pushed him out of the way. To his regret, Beck seemed to have completely conquered any phobias where R. Dorothy Wayneright was concerned. "The last thing she needs is to have your face be the first thing that she sees." Roger suspected that Dorothy was entirely aware despite being dormant, but after being forced to witness Beck tinker with the inside of her head he didn't care.

There was a brief scuffle while Roger Smith and an indignant Beck struggled for position, then Beck remembered that he was a prisoner and acquiesced. Norman couldn't help but smile. For a split second, the two grown men had looked like two girls having a catfight.

"Back off," Roger instructed. "Stand back in the corner and be quiet. I don't want any trouble out of you."

Beck frowned and raised his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender and did what he was told.

Roger walked over to Norman. "Okay, I'll trade you…" Roger reached inside his jacket and pulled out… nothing. He began to search his pockets in an exaggerated fashion until he heard Beck whistle behind him.

"Looking for this?" the gangly criminal smirked as he held up a Wayneright memory core in his hand.

"Give me that!" Roger nearly shouted as he snatched the vital component from Jason's hand. He paused to regain his composure, then marched back over to Norman and handed him the memory drive. Wordlessly, Norman handed Roger the gun.

The elderly butler examined the inside of Dorothy's skull while Roger kept the gun pointed at Beck.

"How does it look, Norman?" the armed and dangerous negotiator called.

"He did a masterful job of restoring Dorothy's peripherals, Master Roger," Norman assured him. "Installing her memory drive should be no problem now."

"Okay," Roger risked a glance in Norman's direction, then returned his gaze on Beck. "Go ahead and install it then."

This was it. This was the moment of weakness that Jason Beck was waiting for. No doubt Beck was expecting Roger's full attention to be on Dorothy Wayneright and that's when the blond crook would either make his escape or turn the tables on him. It took all of Roger's self-control not to watch Norman place the memory core into Dorothy's head. A bead of sweat trickled from his forehead as his eyes bored into Beck's daring him to make a move while Norman made little 'hm' noises and clicking sounds could be heard. As the whirring of Dorothy's drive was heard Roger realized that he was holding his breath. He inhaled deeply, not wanting to get dizzy and let Beck pull one on him. He wasn't going to let Beck out of his sight until he had given the gun back to Norman.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn't help wrenching his eyes away from the wily felon when he heard Dorothy say: "Roger, kill me."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Kill Me Roger_


	11. Kill Me Roger

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Eleven: Kill Me Roger _

"Roger, kill me."

Whatever Roger Smith expected Dorothy to say, that was not it.

"W-what?" Roger choked on his reply as the revolver he was pointing at Beck drooped in his useless hand. "Dorothy?"

"Oh my," Norman tutted in a fatherly scold. "You mustn't say things like that, Miss Dorothy."

R Dorothy Wayneright rose from the table and put her feet on the floor, her movement jerky and puppet like. Roger could hear the whirs and hums of her servos as she moved, which seemed odd since he usually didn't notice them. It was only when she brushed past Norman to stiffly walk in his direction did he realize that he could hear her movements because she was putting resistance on her servomotors like a human would flex their muscles.

"Roger," she said in a mechanical monotone. "You must shoot me. Get away from me Roger. You must kill me."

"Dorothy, what are you saying?" gasped the horrified negotiator. His expression of puzzled concern turned to anger. "Beck!" he shouted as he pointed the pistol at the gold clad criminal, who at this moment was creeping towards the door. "You'll pay for this!"

"Doh!" Beck cringed and turned just to see Roger's finger tighten on the trigger…

A shot rang out. Beck cried out and dived to the ground as the wall belched plaster behind him. He covered his head with his arms and then glanced back in Roger's direction to see Dorothy flipping the negotiator off his feet with one hand. Her slender fingers had seized the arm that was grasping the revolver.

Roger was too surprised to feel pain as he hit the floor, his wrist caught in Dorothy's vise-tight grip. His hand released the gun and Dorothy let go of his arm to catch the pistol in one deft movement.

"Roger," Dorothy's voice was a somber monotone, yet the inflection seemed to convey urgency. "You must destroy me Roger." As the android fired the pistol, Roger Smith rolled to the side to avoid taking a bullet at point-blank range. "Get away from me Roger. You must destroy me before it is too late." Roger dove behind a sofa as Dorothy fired two more shots at him.

"What's happening?" Roger's stunned mind couldn't take it in. "This is a nightmare!"

"Miss Dorothy!" Norman implored her. "Please! Put down that gun before you hurt somebody… oh!"

The elderly butler's plea was silenced when Dorothy turned to point the gun at Norman's one good eye.

"Run away, Norman," Dorothy told him as her hand holding the revolver shook. "Find a weapon that can kill me. I can't…"

Roger jumped over the couch and tackled Dorothy just as she fired, spoiling her aim. The gunshot restored the paralyzed butler to life, and he backed away when realization set in. "Norman!" Roger cried as he attempted to cover Dorothy's body with his own. "Get out of here!"

"Oh," Norman sighed sadly. "Very well, Master Roger," he said as he shuffled out the door. "Perhaps I should heed Miss Dorothy's warning after all."

"Ah!" Roger grunted as Dorothy pulled him off her and threw him against the wall. His fingers clutched a blood red curtain that had been erected to cover the hasty repairs to the wall after Beck's robots had attacked the mansion earlier that week. The curtain tore lose as the negotiator tumbled to the ground and he was buried in a pool of scarlet cloth.

Beck, in the meantime was sitting on the floor laughing like a madman while clapping with his feet. "Roger Smith's robot girlfriend is emptying a gun on him while begging for her own death! You can't _buy_ this kind of entertainment!"

Beck's laughter died when Dorothy turned and pointed the pistol at his chest. "Who commands you, Jason Beck?" she asked, her voice gaining a strange stereo quality.

"What?" the blond criminal staggered to his feet and backed away. "Who commands me? What do you mean? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You possess the knowledge to design and repair megadeuses," Dorothy stated with a slight distortion to her voice, "the sacred chariots of mankind. The power to command a megadeus is to serve a greater power. You have memories that do not belong to you. Those who remember are to be commanded. Only those who are commanded can have memories. Who commands you, Jason Beck?" As she spoke her voice became louder and more distorted.

Beck swallowed nervously and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "W-who commands me? Um… whoever commands you, of course!" Unfortunately, the pale girl's dour face held no clues to her reaction, so he had no way of knowing if his answer was the right one or not. "Uh, Alex Rosewater? Alan Gabriel? Vera whatzername? Timothy Wayneright?"

The sound of the hammer on the pistol being cocked back was like a thunderclap to the sweating criminal.

Too late, Beck realized that Timothy Wayneright was the last name he should have mentioned. "N-now D-Dorothy…" Jason tried a disarming smile but his fear made it a wacky grimace. "Y-you don't really want to shoot me, do you? W-why, you'd sink down to my level! What would your precious Roger think?"

Dorothy's voice held a hint of indignity. "Thanks to your meddling, I now have no difficulties in taking a life," As she continued, her voice became stilted and unnatural. "Thanks to you, directives commanding me to eliminate those who have memories ring in my ears. To obey them is as natural as breathing, as natural as opening an umbrella when it rains." As she spoke her voice gradually increased in volume and distortion again until she seemed to be yelling at him. "You, Jason Beck, have memories that do not belong to you! Memories that belong to my father! You took them from him, and those who have memories that do not belong to them must perish!" Her face suddenly became wild and manic as she shouted. "Say goodbye, MURDERER!"

"Dorothy! No!" Roger's body seemed to be on autopilot as he threw the blood red curtain over Dorothy to blind her and spoil her aim. Never mind that he himself had recently attempted to kill Beck with the same gun. There was no way he was going to let Dorothy become a murderer. Not if he could still save her. At the same time the tone of voice and the words she used were horribly familiar...

"Beck, run!" Roger Smith cried as he turned and ran towards the paralyzed criminal. He seized Beck by the shoulder and pushed him through the door. Once through the door he seized the felon by the lapels and pushed him against the wall. "What did you _do_ to her?" the negotiator barked.

"Uh, I switched memory drives on her," the crook said lamely as he grasped Roger's wrists. "I figured it would be a distraction…"

"Where did you get that thing?" Roger demanded. "Who's memory drive _was_ it, anyway?"

"Roger…!" Dorothy's ghostly and distorted voice called.

Roger Smith turned to look in the doorway and saw R Dorothy Wayneright moving forward, the red curtain billowing around her hooded form like a crimson cloak. "No!" the negotiator gasped, his worst suspicions confirmed. "R Dorothy is… Red Destiny!"

"ROGER!" Dorothy's voice was a bestial growl as she stiffly pointed the gun in front of her.

The negotiator dropped to the floor and rolled out of sight as Dorothy fired again. He leaped to his feet and dashed after Jason Beck, who was already legging it down the hall.

"Raw…jer…" her distorted voice called as she strode out of the room leaving the red curtain behind her. "Kill me, Roger!" she screamed. "KILL MEEEE!"

In the meantime, Roger caught up with Beck at the catwalk that crossed Big O's storage bay. The black megadeus impassively ignored the struggle when Roger leaped forward to tackle Beck by the legs and knock them both onto the floor of the catwalk.

"Where's Dorothy's memory drive, Beck?" Roger demanded. "What have you done with it?"

"Get off me, Crow-boy!" Beck pleaded as he rolled on to his back to kick Roger off of him. "You're going to get us both killed!"

"Give me her memory drive!" Roger babbled childishly. "Give it back to me right now! I'm warning you…!"

Beck pulled the rectangular component from his jacket pocket and dangled it over the edge. "Careful, Roger," he smirked when he saw the terrified expression on the face of his now paralyzed foe. "You don't want me to drop it now. Miss Dorothy's original memory would be smashed into a million pieces!"

"Ah…ah…" Roger's words caught in his throat. His brows furrowed. "If you drop it, so help me, I'll kill you! Argh!" Beck kicked Roger off him, sending him backwards along the catwalk. The two men grasped the safety railings to pull themselves to their feet.

Beck was still holding Dorothy's memory drive over the abyss. "That's an empty threat anyway, Smitty, 'cause when your android girlfriend gets here, she's gonna kill us both anyway!"

"Beck…" Roger clenched his stomach where the gold clad crook had kicked him and grimaced in pain.

"I can't tell ya how much I love seeing you sweat like this, but I'm outta time!" Beck announced. With a snappy backhand, the felon tossed the drive unit over Roger's head like a Frisbee. "Toodles!"

"No!" Roger turned and lunged to catch the memory drive before it hit the walkway and bounced off the catwalk. His body skidded forward as his numb fingers grasped the wayward drive unit. His body came to a start before two tiny feet. His gaze went up to survey a slender blackclad figure holding a revolver in her slender, almost childlike hand.

"Roger…" Dorothy's voice was quiet, a voice that had lost all hope. She pulled the trigger.

Roger winced and involuntarily closed his eyes, then opened them in confusion when he heard the 'click' of the hammer hitting an empty chamber. Dorothy had fired all six bullets! The gun was empty!

Roger jumped to his feet and grasped Dorothy by the shoulders. "Dorothy!" he cried. "Get a hold of yourself! You are Dorothy Wayneright and nobody can take that away from you! Red Destiny is dead! She can't control you! Fight it!"

Dorothy's body jerked in Roger's hands as if she was struggling against an unknown foe. It was as if she were struggling for control of her limbs against some malevolent force. "R-raw…jer…" she stammered. "R-roger… I… love… you…!" Her hands glided up his body to his shoulders.

Roger gasped. Just when he thought this day couldn't hold more unsettling surprises. "Dorothy, I…"

He never got a chance to finish because Dorothy lifted him off his feet and threw him over the side.

To Dorothy's android vision, the entire scene seemed to be playing out in slow motion. Despite the unrelenting orders to kill, Dorothy had managed to choose the method of execution. Tossing him over the side of the catwalk to fall to his doom would give Roger the best chance to survive. She even threw him upwards to give him more time before he hit the ground. Sure enough, Roger managed to turn his tumble in the air into an acrobatic spin. As he dropped down past her angle of vision she saw his right hand reach for his left wrist. His left wrist that wasn't wearing a watch. That didn't have the watch had held the pneumonic cable and grappling hook he was going to use to save his life. "No…" she whispered. "ROGER…!" her scream was deafening.

She couldn't move. Couldn't even move her head to look down and see him tumble to his doom, to see his body impact with the unyielding floor of Big O's hangar. She could only stand at attention with her mouth open like an unseeing, unmoving, statue. She couldn't hear anything, couldn't tell if she was still screaming. In her mind she could hear Roger calling her name, but the only things she could see were flashes of images of Roger Smith from days long past… Roger Smith in his pajamas and bathrobe, Roger Smith at the wheel of the Griffin, Roger Smith in the cockpit of Big O, Roger Smith with his left arm bleeding, Dorothy at his side with her hand on his…

Where was his watch? He should have been wearing his watch! Where did it go? In nanoseconds, her android mind ran through the possibilities, and came up with the most probable solution: Jason Beck. According to the directives invading her mind, all those who possess dangerous memories must perish. Jason Beck fit the criteria, and his death would cause her the least amount of pain. Of the remaining humans inside the mansion, he was the one whose absence would cause the least suffering. Indeed his continued existence would merely put more lives in jeopardy.

She felt no satisfaction as she chose her next victim. She was completely numb, an unfeeling machine. Her slender legs marched forward left, right, left, right. Soon she would destroy Jason Beck, and then she would force Norman to destroy the one who deserved death most of all: Dorothy Wayneright. "Soon, Roger, we will be together. The only way we can."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Stand in the Rain _


	12. Stand In The Rain Without An Umbrella

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Twelve: Stand in the Rain Without An Umbrella. _

Roger Smith was on his back, stunned and reeling while gazing up at Dorothy Wayneright. One by one his senses returned to him. Dorothy was standing on the catwalk that crossed Big O's hangar, staring straight ahead, her eyes and mouth wide open. A high-pitched shriek chilled his spine, a scream that seemed to tear through the air itself until Dorothy closed her mouth and turned to stiffly walk along the catwalk and out of the chamber.

Roger's other senses kicked in about then. His body registered aches and pains, including a massive headache and a sore back. His hip hurt too. So did his stomach and his jaw. Come to think of it, it was hard to find a part of his body that _didn't_ hurt in some way.

His sense of taste was not rewarding, for his mouth tasted like a combination of bile and cotton, with a tiny hint of blood for good measure.

He decided to concentrate on his vision. He was off the catwalk but easily forty feet off the floor of the hangar. How was this possible? His pain told him that he was not having an out-of-body experience. Each hurt and ding told him in excruciating detail that his body was present and that he was still alive. He was lying on a hard, cold surface.

Against his body's better judgment, Roger sat up to survey his surroundings and assess his damages. He was surprised to see five massive dark gunmetal digits arranged around him. He was lying in Big O's hand!

"Big O?" Roger mumbled, as he rose drunkenly to his feet. Nothing was broken, but tomorrow his bruises would make his skin look like a newspaper. His eyes travelled up the megadeus' arm that had extended under the catwalk to catch him to the impassive face of the Big O. "You saved me?" Roger murmured in disbelief. "You moved by yourself? Again?"

As if in response, the red collar of the black megadeus rose to obscure Big O's face and reveal the tall gangly form of Norman Burg at the controls. "Master Roger!" the butler exclaimed. "Are you all right? You took a nasty spill there, sir. I was afraid you were hurt."

"I'm fine," Roger assured him. "Just had the wind knocked out of me. What are you doing in there?"

The butler shrugged. "With a homicidal android on the loose, this seemed to be the safest place."

"Of course," Roger rubbed the back of his neck. "How long was I out?"

"Out?" Norman frowned. "I didn't realize you had lost consciousness. I presumed that you were merely remaining still until Miss Dorothy left."

Roger chuckled. "It's a good thing that Dorothy didn't look down. I was barely ten feet away from her. She didn't look behind her either, or she would have noticed that Big O's arm moved."

Norman didn't seem as amused. "Yes, that is rather fortunate, Master Roger. I'm afraid that Miss Dorothy is in a world all her own."

Roger frowned. "No, she's in Red Destiny's world. A world that Alex Rosewater used to drive one android crazy and now Dorothy's sanity is at risk as well." He searched his pockets and then pulled a flat rectangular component out of his jacket. "It's not broken," he sighed in relief. He held it up in front of him as Norman worked the joystick to make Big O bring Roger up to the cockpit. "Here," the negotiator said as he handed the apparatus to his butler, "put Dorothy's memory drive in a safe place. I'm going to save Dorothy!"

"And Mr. Beck, too sir," Norman added.

Roger inhaled a deep breath and sighed. "I suppose that can't be helped."

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night. During the time that Beck had been working on Dorothy, the weather had gotten steadily worse. Black clouds enveloped the sky in darkness, and the jagged forks of lighting that briefly illuminated the city ensured that no one's eyes would be able to adjust to the gloom.

On the rooftop patio of the white tower that was the Smith mansion, a blond man in a yellow double-breasted suit was fiddling with a wristwatch.

Thunderstorms didn't scare Jason Beck, even after he was struck by lightning. Okay, thunderstorms didn't scare him very _much_. Beck was talking to himself to steady his nerves. In any case, he wasn't going to let a little bad weather cancel his plan to rappel to safety and out of the madhouse that Roger Smith called home.

"Come on," he growled. "Work, damn it! Where's the Smith-rope? I don't want the laser, and the car is worthless to me up here! Why doesn't it…" His voice trailed off when a miniature grappling hook attached to a slender cord emerged from the watch. "All right! Finally! Now to fasten it real good here…" He looped the cord around a pillar and used the grappling hook to secure it. "Time to go!" He walked over to the stone railing that separated the rooftop patio from the edge of the building. "Eeyah!" the felon cried as he staggered backwards.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the deathly white face of a teenage girl standing on the railing. She was clad only in a grey skintight wetsuit that emphasized her lithe and delicate form. Her red hair was in bangs, a black barrette concealing the memory drive of an android programmed to kill. Her dark emotionless eyes stared at him without blinking.

"You!" Beck shouted. "You don't want me! You want Roger!"

"Roger is dead, Jason Beck," the girl told him in a sad voice. "I killed him."

"N-no way!" Beck nervously chuckled. "You couldn't have killed Smith. I've tried that myself. There's no way…"

"He is dead," Dorothy told him. "I killed him. As I will now kill you."

The matter-of-fact tone combined with the android's morbid statement made Beck freeze, just for a moment. A flash of lightning blinded him as the android girl leaped down and closed the distance between them. Her hand shot out and grasped the tall lanky crook by his shoulder. She pulled him up onto the stone railing to stand with her.

"Yah!" Beck screamed as the girl's vice-like grip pulled him off his feet.

"I can fulfill my directives and ensure that neither one of us endangers anyone ever again," Dorothy said as her arms encircled the struggling criminal. "I will jump and take you with me. My additional weight has an excellent chance of wrenching your hand loose from that watch and if not, I can always undo the band. The fall should kill us both. That way, neither one of us will be responsible for any more deaths. I'm sorry, Jason Beck."

The struggling criminal couldn't protest with Dorothy hugging him so tight. To be honest it was hard for him to breathe. He felt his legs swing freely in the air as Dorothy turned to face the city and held him over the drop.

Just then the patio lights came on. "Dorothy!" A familiar voice shouted behind her. "Wait! What are you doing?"

"Ah!" The android's eyes opened in shock as she released her captive.

Beck fell over four stories before he was able to scream. Less than halfway down the building, the crook came to an abrupt stop as the watch ran out of line. As the cord lost its slack, Jason's momentum propelled him to the hard unyielding surface of the building. "Ooh-ah-uh!" Beck gasped. "Ouch! I think I dislocated by shoulder. Oh well. At least it's not raining." A boom of thunder rumbled through the city as lightning forked overhead. "I couldn't keep my big mouth shut, could I?" the blond crook grumbled.

* * *

Back up on the rooftop patio, Dorothy Wayneright turned to see a disheveled Roger Smith stumbling out onto the patio.

"Rodge…er…" Dorothy stammered. She moved like a marionette, emphasizing both her mechanical nature and her loss of free will.

"Dorothy, come down from there," Roger implored her, lowering his voice so as not to alarm her. "Please, come back to me Dorothy."

The girl stood as erect as a soldier at attention. "Roger, I cannot," she retorted in her dour monotone. "If I do, I will kill you." A crack of thunder punctuated her statement.

"You don't have to, Dorothy," Roger insisted gently. "You are your own person. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"I have to," she stated somberly. "I have to kill you. The directives commanding me are ringing in my ears. They are as necessary as breathing. As compulsory as opening an umbrella when it rains."

At that moment, the black sky chose to release its downpour. Large, full raindrops hit their bodies. The rainfall matted their hair to their heads and caused rivulets of water to flow down their cheeks.

"Some people choose to stand in the rain without an umbrella," Roger Smith told her. "That's what it means to be free."

The rain dripping down her melancholy face made it appear as if Dorothy was crying. Seeing her like that choked Roger up as well, but he had to be strong, for both their sakes.

"Roger, I am not free," she said quietly. "I am not even real."

"You're real to me," Roger insisted switching to his 'command voice', "and I'm tired of you giving up on me, Dorothy Wayneright!"

"I have never given up on you, Roger Smith," Dorothy told him.

"That's baloney and you know it," Roger told her. "You gave up when Beck's robots came to get you, and you're giving up now! You're stronger than that, Dorothy Wayneright. Why aren't you trying harder?"

"I am not like you, Roger," she said sadly. "My memories can be used to restore a megadeus to operation. The memories inside me can be used to create a weapon of mass destruction. I cannot allow that to happen. I should be destroyed before anyone else comes to harm."

"You deserve your life as much as anyone else does!" the negotiator argued as the rain soaked through his clothing. "I've never met a more giving or selfless person in my life! You deserve a chance to live, Dorothy Wayneright. Don't throw your life away. You've got to fight!"

"My very presence endangers those I love," the android informed him. "When Jason Beck abducted me at the Nightingale, my father wanted me to resist. My resistance caused his death, and I was kidnapped anyway. If a battle cannot be won, it is better to surrender if it will save the lives of those that you care about."

"What are you talking about?" Roger asked.

"When the scorpion robots attacked the house, it was obvious that both you and Norman would die trying to defend me," the pale girl explained. "It was better that I surrendered myself so that you might live."

Roger was momentarily taken aback by the revelation. It was so obvious! Why hadn't he seen it? To Dorothy's logical mind, it made no sense to allow history to repeat itself. He should have realized what a formative moment Timothy Wayneright's death was for the impressionable android girl.

"Roger, I want this to end," Dorothy said miserably. "Orders that I find repugnant ring through every fiber of my being. The only way to ensure your safety is to destroy myself. If I jump, your life will be spared."

Oh God, thought Roger, she's talking herself into it! "Wait! Don't jump!" he cried. He ran a few steps to her before he stopped himself. Ignoring the rain spattering his face he gestured with open hands to the despondent android. "We have your original memory!" He shouted above the wind. "We can restore you to back to normal and let Red Destiny rest in peace! You can have your life back!"

"I am not technically alive, Roger," Dorothy pointed out. The wind and rain whipped through her hair as rivulets of water poured down her face and body.

"Yes you are!" Roger argued. "You said it yourself that even your father didn't completely understand how you work or how you think. You are a real and living person, Dorothy Wayneright! You deserve life as much as any of us!"

"As long as I exist, you are in danger," Dorothy insisted.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm always in danger," Roger smirked as he hugged himself as the rain soaked through his clothing. "As the pilot of Big O, there's always some punk who's trying to take me down."

"I am in pain," Dorothy closed her eyes. "I am just a machine. There is no reason I should live. According to Red Destiny's directives, anyone who has forbidden memories must perish. By definition, I qualify. I can end my pain and ensure your safety, simply by stepping off the ledge. I don't even have to jump."

"Don't you dare jump!" he ordered. "If you do, I'll jump after you!" Stupid thing to say, but he couldn't think of anything else.

"Do not be ridiculous, Roger," she sighed. "You will not jump after me. I am not worth it."

"You are to me!" he shouted, proof that anyone who negotiates for himself has a fool for a client.

"No I am not," Despite her calm voice, there was something childish about her stubbornness.

"Yes, you are!" he cried. "You mean the world to me!"

"I am just a machine," Dorothy said sadly. "I am not a real woman. You could never care about me. You could never love me."

"Don't say that, Dorothy!" Roger's voice betrayed his fear.

"It is in your nature to protect the helpless, but you do not love me," she said with an air of finality to her voice. "No one could. I am a machine, nothing more."

"Don't say that!" snapped a horrified Roger. "You're more than just a machine! And I _do_ love you!"

"What?" Her eyes snapped open.

"I said that I love you!" Roger spread his arms wide as the rain poured down on them.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Created to be Loved_


	13. Created to be Loved

_The Big O__ and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual._

"_And Forever" Lyrics by Chie, Composition/Arrangement by Ken Shima_

THE BIG O:

ACT 27

ROGER THE VIGILANTE

_Chapter Thirteen: Created to be Loved_

Dorothy Wayneright stood on the stone railing that overlooked the edge of Roger Smith's rooftop patio. The slender girl was still clad in the wetsuit she had worn nearly a week ago when she had rescued the negotiator from drowning when Big O had been sent to the bottom of the sea. Her petite and delicate body seemed painfully fragile, and her normally expressionless face held surprise and vulnerability. The wind rushing through her hair made it appear as if she was swaying unsteadily as the rain poured down on her. It was easy to believe that she was flesh and blood instead of steel and silicon chips.

Before her, a bedraggled Roger Smith was beseeching her from the patio, afraid to go to her side in case she might jump. His black double-breasted suit was wrinkled, his tie missing, and the collar of his white shirt was crooked. His arms were spread with his palms facing her. "Dorothy?" he said gently, lowering his arms slightly. "Did you hear me? I said that I love you."

Dorothy was as still as a statue, her face betraying her shock. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. "You must be lying," Dorothy said mechanically as the wind buffeted her hair. "No one could love me."

"No," Roger shook his head as the rain waned to a slight drizzle. "You're wrong. Anyone who gets to know you can't help but love you. That's why you were created. You were created to be loved." As he spoke, Roger stepped tentatively towards her.

"I…" Dorothy crossed her arms and looked away.

Roger went on the attack before Dorothy could find another reason to take her life. "Those are Red Destiny's thoughts you're hearing! She is not you! Once we give you your own memories back, you'll know that I'm telling the truth! You were created to be loved, and I love you! That is the truth!" As he spoke, Roger took another step closer to Dorothy… Closer… He had to get closer…

"Roger, my memories…" The girl stood still, but her head jerked like a bird's as she struggled to sort her thoughts out.

As Roger crept closer his mouth seemed to speak on its own. He didn't mean to shout, but the adrenaline running through his system made his appeal more passionate than he intended. "Your memories are compatible with a megadeus because a megadeus is the most advanced computer your father could use as a template!" Were his educated guesses factual? Who knew? Roger believed it, and when making an emotional appeal, sincerity was what counted. "Timothy Wayneright didn't understand it all so he had to use a technology he only partially understood. He had to use the memory drive of a megadeus because that was the only way to insure that you'd be a real person, that you would have a mind of your own!" Finally Roger could dispense with the theories and get on to the things he was certain of. "Your father didn't create a robot, he created a daughter! He created a woman! A woman that I love! And I'm not going to let her go without a fight!"

"Roger… help… me…" Dorothy's body trembled as if she was attempting to move her paralyzed body. Making a decision, Dorothy crouched and slid off the railing and onto the patio as if she were a human girl. A frail human girl who was afraid of falling. It looked like Roger was winning. If only he could get to her side before she changed her mind…

"I will," Roger nodded, gaining confidence. "Just follow me inside, and we'll restore your memory drive. Your real memory drive, not that that faulty knockoff RD was stuck with. We can restore you, let you have your life back. Come on, Dorothy, slowly. Come to me. One step at a time…" He extended his hand. He had stopped walking forward. Dorothy had to make the next move.

Roger's heart soared as Dorothy mimicked his actions and extended her hand and walked stiffly over to him. Her lovely face was marred by nervous tics and twitches. Dorothy must be fighting the directives that commanded her to kill with all of her might. She was trusting Roger and allowing him to risk his life in order to save hers. He had to play it cool, he couldn't afford to make a mistake now.

"That's it," Roger smiled. "Come over here, Dorothy. Don't worry, you won't hurt me." The rain paused momentarily, allowing them to see each other clearly by the patio lights. "I trust you, Dorothy. You just have to trust yourself."

Was it Roger's imagination, or did he see a weak smile cross her lips? Perhaps it was a reflection from the lights, but he thought he could see a sparkle in her eye. Perhaps even an android could hope.

As they drew together, Roger grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him. As his right hand clutched her shoulder, his left arm went around her back and drew her close. Dorothy's eyes were wide with surprise as Roger leaned forward towards her. Her lips parted as Roger's mouth closed with hers…

Just before their lips could touch, Roger whispered: "I'm sorry."

Without warning, he drew back as tiny blue lightning bolts crackled across the android's twitching form. The look of helpless surprise on her face caused a tear to form in Roger's eye as she pitched forward into his arms. When the girl went limp, the taser that Roger held in his left hand was revealed. During the embrace, he had placed it against the nape of her neck. With a flick of his thumb, the taser became the large yellow comb that Roger had confiscated from Beck a few days earlier. With the water dripping off of his body, it was a miracle that the negotiator hadn't electrocuted himself with the little gadget.

"You'll be yourself when you wake up," he whispered into her ear as he pocketed the comb. "I hope," he added as he picked up the slender android and carried her back inside as the angry sky released another downpour. He had to get her back to Norman's workshop before the adrenaline wore off and the full effect of the evening caught up with him. Despite her small and slender build, Dorothy's android body weighed over 280 pounds, and Roger was too proud to ask for help moving her.

* * *

Later, back in Norman's robotic workshop, Roger Smith was swallowing some painkillers with the assistance of a glass of water. Norman had finished examining Dorothy's memory drive. "Well?" the negotiator asked, his weariness making him irritable and impatient.

"I am happy to report that this is indeed the genuine article," Norman replied. "This drive definitely belongs to Miss Dorothy. There doesn't seem to be any damage to it from the time it spent installed in the white megadeus."

"Thank goodness for that," Roger sighed as he sat in a chair and leaned on a desk. "We'll know for sure once we reinstall it back into Dorothy's head."

"It's a pity you weren't able to save Mister Beck, sir," Norman said sadly. "I don't know what emotional damage this ordeal has done Miss Dorothy, but knowing that she killed someone will not speed her recovery."

"What?" Roger suddenly became alert. "Beck?"

"Yes, sir," Norman nodded. "Mister Beck. I was lamenting the fact that you were unable to save Mister Beck and what effect that would have on Miss Dorothy…"

"Beck!" Roger slammed his fist against the desk in frustration. "I forgot all about him!"

"Yes," Norman sighed. "Since you didn't come back with him I assumed…"

"Damn it all to Hell!" Roger growled as he got up angrily.

"I must agree, Master Roger," said the old man. "It is quite disturbing…"

"It sure is!" Roger grumbled as he marched to the door. "I have a nasty feeling that Beck is still alive!"

* * *

Outside, dangling on the end of a slender cable and grappling hook, Jason Beck suffered as the rain soaked his canary colored double-breasted suit, flattened his curly blond hair onto his head, and dripped down his arm, onto his chest, past his torso, and out his pants legs to fall over ten stories to the ground below. His dislocated shoulder refused to go numb, and in defiance to popular belief, a sufficient amount of pain did not cause unconsciousness. On the contrary, pain is a natural stimulant, and it was sufficient to keep Jason Beck awake through the most excruciating experience of his life. He idly wondered how long he had been hanging there, his life depending on the cord that attached him to a pillar on Roger Smith's rooftop balcony. He was dangling by Roger's watch around his wrist, and didn't have the strength to pull himself up so he could see what time it was.

His shoulder suddenly found new ways to torture him with a new kind of pain that managed to be both throbbing and stabbing. It was like some sadist was pulling on the other end of the rope trying to pull Beck's arm off. The criminal managed to whimper, but didn't have the energy to give the pain the earsplitting scream that it truly deserved.

Beck bounced against the wall of the white tower that was Roger's home and could sense that he was ascending. Was Dorothy going to finish him off? His arm hit the stone railing of Smith's rooftop patio and was pulled at an unnatural angle, eliciting a shriek from the gold suited crook.

"There he is!" called Roger's voice. "Dammit, he _is_ still alive!"

Roger Smith to the rescue. Woo-pee.

* * *

The next few days were rough on Beck. He had trouble breathing and his body hurt all over. Somebody put his arm in a sling, but the next few days were a delirium of pain and exhaustion. His next coherent memory was lying in a bed. He coughed on phlegm and moaned pitifully. His left arm felt like pins and needles were poking into it and his body ached all over. He heard voices, and that made his head hurt.

Norman hung up the telephone. "I'm sorry, Master Roger, but most of the phone lines are still down. All of the hospitals I've been able to contact are full. Big Fau's attack on the city caused a lot of injuries, both inside the domes and in the illegal residence districts. Every doctor's office that I could get a hold of is busy. I'm afraid we're stuck with him."

"Are you sure he has pneumonia?" Roger asked irritably. "This is Beck we're talking about. He could be faking it."

"He must be a talented fake indeed if he can raise his temperature above a hundred so easily," the one-eyed butler retorted. "His ability to conjure mucus in so many different colors is especially noteworthy."

"As soon as he gets over it, he's just going to try something," Roger grumbled. "He's going to pretend to be sicker than he is just to get us to lower our guard."

"We could turn him over to the police," Norman offered. "The prison is one of the few buildings that wasn't damaged in Big Fau's attack."

"I don't want Paradigm to get a hold of him until we find out what kind of government is going to replace Rosewater's 'New Order'," Roger sighed. "Besides, the prison doctors are probably out treating the general populace." He smiled at the thought of Jason Beck dying of pneumonia in a lonely prison cell. A slow painful death seemed fitting for a fiend that had made Dorothy suffer like she had…

Roger smiled mischievously. "Couldn't we just kick him out and let him fend for himself? He must have a hideout somewhere where he can hole up until he recovers."

"'Kick him out'? In his condition?" the butler was aghast. "Master Roger, in his condition, that would be murder!"

"I know," the negotiator sighed. "A man can dream, can't he?" He rubbed the back of his neck and glared at the door to Beck's room. It was slightly ajar, and the weakened criminal was able to overhear their conversation. "I just can't stand the thought of that parasite mooching off of us in the meantime," Roger grumbled. "Having a punk like that living in my house is bad enough!"

"Not to worry, Master Roger, I think that Mister Beck will be in a hurry to leave here as soon as he is able," Norman assured him with a twinkle in his eye.

The door to Beck's room opened and a small, slender silhouette entered. His eyes bulged in fear as the familiar form of R. Dorothy Wayneright, clad in a dowdy gothic style reddish black dress advanced on him carrying a bowl of steaming liquid. Beck tried to scream but was too short of breath, so he had to settle for gibbering mindlessly.

The apparition marched towards him, but he was too weak to get up, let alone flee. Dorothy's lifeless eyes appraised him as if he was a spider or some kind of pest she was about to squash. Her ghostly hand reached out for him and gently grasped his back to force him to sit up and face her as her cold, mechanical voice spoke without a trace of human warmth or pity. "It is time to eat, Jason Beck. Norman made you chicken soup."

"I don't like the idea of Dorothy alone with him," Roger grumbled.

"She insisted, Master Roger," Norman pointed out. "Out of all of us, only Miss Dorothy is completely immune to any disease that Mister Beck has contracted. Besides, there is a certain poetic justice. Now Mister Beck is at Miss Dorothy's mercy, rather than the other way around."

Dorothy left Beck's room and walked morosely over to the two men. "Norman," the android girl said in her slightly melancholy voice, "I do not believe that my presence is speeding Beck's recovery. My presence seems to make him sicker."

"There, there, Miss Dorothy," the elderly butler assured her. "It is always darkest before the dawn. I'm sure his fever will break soon."

"Look Dorothy," Roger chimed in, "you don't have to take care of Beck if you don't want to. You've been through enough without having to spend another second with that animal."

"Nonsense," Dorothy replied evenly. "If Beck has contracted a serious illness, it is better that I am exposed to it than either of you. I don't mind taking care of him, and in any case, he is no threat in his condition. I am merely concerned that his stay will be prolonged."

"If you say so, Dorothy," Roger sighed.

"Perhaps if you wore a nurse's uniform it would reassure him," Norman offered. "I'm sure we have one around here somewhere…"

Roger elbowed the butler, who grunted and rubbed his arm.

* * *

Later, the android girl stood on the stone railing of the rooftop patio, staring at the sunset. The wind swept through her pageboy haircut and her reddish black dress.

"R Dorothy Wayneright!" Roger's scolding voice called behind her. Dorothy turned to see Roger Smith storming out onto the patio wagging his finger. "What are you doing standing up on that railing? Do you want to kill yourself?"

"It never bothered you before, Roger," she replied calmly.

"Well it bothers me now," a red faced Roger fumed. "If you need to be up on a high place, use one of the pillars! Get down from there now!"

"As you wish," Dorothy answered. She spread her arms and executed an impossible back flip to land on her feet at Roger's side. "I will agree to stay off the railing if you answer a question for me."

"What now?" Roger whined irritably. He gasped, and then looked away and scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry, Dorothy," he said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to snap at you like that. Tell you what, you can stand on the railing as long as it's not raining."

"That would be acceptable," she agreed, "but are you trying to avoid answering my question, Roger Smith?"

"That depends on the question," Roger smiled, surrendering gracefully. "Go ahead. What is it?"

"Did you mean what you said when you said that you love me?" Only Dorothy could make her voice sound flat, yet shy at the same time. "Or did you only say that to save my life?"

"I…" Roger blushed and looked away. He then took a deep breath and remembered the response he memorized for when she asked this very question. "Of course, Dorothy," he nodded as he looked into her unreadable eyes. "Norman and I both love you. I guess in a way, you're the only family we have."

The silence that followed could have lasted a second or an entire minute. Roger stared at Dorothy's perfect, lineless face, a face forever frozen in timeless youth. Her voice, quiet as it was, seemed loud and jarring when she responded to his answer.

"_Norman_ and you both love me?" she asked. Her voice was cold and emotionless, but then it was always cold and emotionless.

"Yes," Roger smiled and nodded. "Timothy Wayneright may be gone, but you've still got us, Dorothy. _We'll_ take care of you."

Once again the rooftop was silent. Dorothy coolly stared at Roger and stood as still as a statue. When she finally responded her voice had a feminine scold: "You really are such a louse Roger Smith."

_We have come to terms._

* * *

Dorothy and Roger sit on a large hourglass the size of a barstool. Behind them is an orange background. The sound of a piano and the duet of a man and woman singing can be heard.

_Sometimes I feel so all alone_

_Finding myself callin' your name_

_When we're apart, so far away_

_Hopin' it's me that you're thinkin' of_

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Scapegoat_


End file.
